Several British government departments have TikTok accounts as part of their public outreach, including the country’s defense ministry, and as recently as one day ago, Michelle Donelan, the secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, said the app was safe for British people to use.
“In terms of the general public, it is absolutely a personal choice, but because we have the strongest data protection laws in the world, we are confident that the public can continue to use it,” she told lawmakers in Parliament.
China has featured prominently in an updated security review published by the government, although Mr. Sunak’s toughened language failed to satisfy all the hawks in his Conservative Party, including one of its former leaders, Iain Duncan Smith.
Mr. Duncan Smith questioned whether the British government officially considered China to be a threat, and on Thursday, while he praised the action against TikTok, he called for the ban to be extended to private devices belonging to government officials.
That followed a decision by China in December to withdraw six of its diplomats from Britain, after a diplomatic standoff between London and Beijing in the wake of a violent clash during a pro-democracy demonstration at the Chinese Consulate in the northern city of Manchester.
The British authorities had asked six Chinese diplomats to waive their official immunity to allow police to investigate how a protester from Hong Kong was injured after being dragged onto the consulate grounds and beaten on Oct. 16.
Instead, China decided to repatriate the six officials, including one of its senior diplomats, the consul general, Zheng Xiyuan, who had denied beating a protester, without denying involvement in the incident.
Adam Satariano contributed reporting.
