U.S. Former President Donald Trump's TikTok and WeChat bans were officially dropped on Wednesday, but scrutiny of the China-owned apps will continue under the Biden administration.
To replace the Trump-era actions, President Biden signed new orders calling for the Commerce Department to launch national security reviews of apps with links to foreign adversaries, including China.
The move represents a reset in relations between Washington and TikTok, the hit video-sharing app owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, and WeChat, the popular messaging app run by Shenzhen-based Tencent. But the apps are "not out of the woods yet," said James Lewis, who heads technology policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and has been in discussions with White House officials in both administrations about the future of the apps.
Biden's executive order mandates accountability measures that TikTok does not currently have, including "reliable third-party auditing" of the app for possible security risk.
Under Biden's new order, the Commerce Department will launch an "evidence-based" evaluation of apps with Chinese connections that may pose a security risk and "take action, as appropriate" based on those reviews.
