Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the US is "looking at" banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTok, over allegations Beijing is using them to spy on users.
Asked on Monday by Fox News's Laura Ingraham if the US should consider blocking the apps -- "especially Tik Tok" -- the country's top diplomat said the Trump administration was "taking this very seriously; we are certainly looking at it."
Pompeo said the US had been working for a "long time" on the "problems" of Chinese technology in infrastructure and was "making real progress."
"With respect to Chinese apps on people's cell phones, I can assure you the United States will get this one right too," he said.
"I don't want to get out in front of the president, but it's something we are looking at."
Pompeo earlier lashed out at what he called China's "Orwellian" moves to censor activists, schools and libraries in Hong Kong under a sweeping new security law.
Authorities in the financial hub have ordered schools to remove books for review under the law, which has criminalized certain opinions such as calls for independence or more autonomy.
Libraries in Hong Kong said they were pulling titles written by a handful of pro-democracy activists.
"The Chinese Communist Party's destruction of free Hong Kong continues," Pompeo said in a sharply worded statement.
The top US diplomat has also led Trump administration officials in criticising Beijing for a lack of transparency and disinformation campaign on the coronavirus since it emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
Earlier, Tiktok was banned by the Indian government along with 58 other Chinese apps after the border clash between India and China at the Galwan Valley, Ladakh in which 20 Indian soldiers were martyred.
The Indian Ministry of Information Technology of said that there have been raging concerns on aspects relating to data security and safeguarding privacy.
After this, US experts also called for a ban on Tiktok citing the handling of user data and threats posing to national security.
TikTok, owned by the Chinese company Bytedance, has long tried to solve these concerns by disassociation with their origin country.
Earlier today, TikTok said it will stop operations in Hong Kong after the city enacted a sweeping national security law last week. The company said in a statement that it had decided to halt operations "in light of recent events."
(With inputs from agencies)