On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning eight Chinese related apps including Alipay owned by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma’s Ant Group and Wechat Pay, QQ Wallet owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd.
The affected apps are Alipay, CamScanner, QQ Wallet, SHAREit, Tencent QQ, VMate, WeChat Pay, and WPS Office.
The ban which is to take effect in 45 days, is supposedly due to the fact that they are a threat to US national security. A U.S. official told Reuters that even though the order gave the Commerce Department 45 days to act, the department plans to act before January 20 when Trump leaves office to identify prohibited transactions.
Trump said that the apps can access private information from their users. According to Trump, the apps could be used by the Chinese government to “track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, and build dossiers of personal information.”
“The United States must take aggressive action against those who develop or control Chinese connected software applications to protect our national security,” he added.
He explained that the “pace and pervasiveness” of the spread of Chinese software apps “continue to threaten the national security, foreign policy and economy” of the country.
“By accessing personal electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, and computers Chinese connected software applications can access and capture vast swaths of information from users, including sensitive personally identifiable information and private information,” he said.
Last year, the Trump administration went after TikTok, Wechat and Huawei. In August, the US president issued an order banning TikTok and WeChat but a California judge subsequently blocked the WeChat order while judges in Washington DC and Pennsylvania halted the TikTok ban.
