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Photo Courtesy of the House Select Committee

“There is a very, very simple piece of code—a driver—that allows a phone to recognize a charger and say, ‘This is a valid charger,’ and then use it,” explained veteran law enforcement and cybersecurity expert Keith Hanson, CEO of QUX Technologies. “So theoretically, any piece of hardware out of China could have a similar program on it. It could install a driver that does whatever it’s programmed to do.” He warned that this programming would be written by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and designed to serve Beijing’s interests—not yours or those of the American government.

Hanson went on to warn that any hardware or software from China could potentially “install a small snippet of code that… is basically a green light to now go ahead.” This means China could remotely track your browsing history, monitor online activity, or even profile your movements to feed its AI systems. Worse, the CCP could activate your camera, listen in on your conversations, log your keystrokes, or, with the rise of the Internet of Things, gain control of devices ranging from your coffee maker to your car.

During his first term, President Donald Trump attempted to ban TikTok, citing national security concerns over its ownership by the Chinese company ByteDance. The administration argued that TikTok could collect data on U.S. citizens and potentially share it with the Chinese government. In August 2020, Trump signed executive orders targeting TikTok and another Chinese-owned app, WeChat, requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok’s U.S. operations to an American company. While ByteDance negotiated a potential sale to Oracle and Walmart, the deal was never finalized.

Legal challenges blocked the bans from taking effect, with courts questioning the administration’s authority and raising First Amendment concerns. When President Joe Biden took office in 2021, he paused and eventually rescinded Trump’s orders, instead issuing a new executive order in June 2021.

Hanson said that the TikTok ban was and is the right thing to do, because of the threat posed to the United States by the Chinese apps and hardware. He stated “the overwhelming majority of our electronic devices are made in China. And then you also have now a lot of the software that’s being loaded onto these electronic devices in China.” And the threat is that “China has the security keys for the majority of these electronic devices, and a lot of these programs and everything else may have these keys.”

The keys in this case are like the keys to your house—you wouldn’t hand them out indiscriminately, especially not to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Yet, when it comes to technology, that’s essentially what happens. Terms of service agreements are often lengthy and written in legalese, so most people don’t read them. You just click “OK” and start using the app or program.

However, these agreements often include language that allows your user data—and sometimes access keys—to be shared with third parties. This information is then fed into AI systems, providing “ever-refreshing data that’s going into a pool that fuels AI learning,” explained Hanson. “It engages in comparative analysis for its own learning and develops human behavioral analysis, where AI is becoming exceptionally good at predicting human behavior and understanding human psychology.”

When asked whether China is using data or monitoring the products and programs we buy and use, Hanson drew a comparison to China’s real-world surveillance. He explained that China is the world’s largest and most advanced surveillance state. “They’re surveilling everything else. Why would you not believe that their ports, their phones, or whatever else they produce are being surveilled?” Modern-day China is blanketed with cameras equipped with facial recognition technology, tracking its citizens and anyone within its borders.

Hanson emphasized that if China can surveil its own people to such an extreme degree, it’s logical to assume they are also monitoring Americans—China’s greatest rival—through hardware and software. Viewed in this context, Trump’s TikTok ban appears completely rational, and stricter, broader bans should be a priority in a second term.