Government ministers must be wary of allowing their children to use the popular TikTok app for fear of exposing secrets to Chinese spies, a former MI6 chief has warned. TikTok is a Chinese video-sharing social-networking service owned by ByteDance, a Beijing-based internet technology company. Nigel Inkster, a former intelligence and operations director at the British Secret Intelligence Service, said the Beijing-owned app could serve as an “entry-point” for hackers backed by the Communist state. Mr Inkster, who left the service in 2006 and is now a leading expert on China’s cyber threat at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, warned China’s security services were adept at finding digital weak spots for high-profile targets from which to siphon off sensitive material. His comments come as US President Donald Trump announced sweeping legal restrictions on TikTok in the US, citing security concerns. The app has become a runaway success with children and teenagers in the past few years for its short dance and prank videos, and it now has roughly 800 million users worldwide. However, the app, which was created in 2018, is owned by the Beijing-based tech giant ByteDance, which comes under China’s sweeping security laws stating any company or citizen has to assist its security services. TikTok has repeatedly said that none of its users’ data is stored in China and it is not shared with the communist regime. However, Mr Inkster told The Telegraph that as long as TikTok was owned by a Chinese company the country’s security services potentially had a back door into its data. He warned the app could also serve as an entry point to prominent UK figures' online devices, even if on the phones of household members or relatives sharing the same wi-fi network.
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