Pompeo says U.S. considering TikTok restriction amid concerns Beijing use app for surveillance

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the Trump administration is considering restricting the use of TikTok in the country amid concerns about the Chinese social media application is being used by Beijing for surveillance.

"We are taking this very seriously and we are certainly looking at it. We have worked on this very issue for a long time,” Pompeo said late Monday on Fox New’s “The Ingraham Angle.” 

Such a move would reportedly follow Australia considering such a restriction and India having already banned the app. 

TikTok has grown in popularity over roughly the past two years. The app is a platform for short, smart-phone made videos and is especially popular among teens. 

Such a restriction in the U.S. is part of the administration’s larger concern about the Chinese Communist Party using the country’s technology in other countries for surveillance. 

The administration has already put limitations on efforts by Chinese technology companies Huawei and ZTE to expand in the U.S. The companies are leaders in the international race to development next-generation, super-fast 5G wireless technology.

"We have worked on this very issue for a long time, whether it's the problem of having Huawei technology in your infrastructure,” Pompeo also told Fox News. “We've gone all over the world and we are making real progress getting that out. We had declared ZTE a danger to American national security."