Members of the US Congress have questioned TikTok CEO Xu Ziqiu about the app's data security and privacy policies.

The United States has threatened to ban it altogether if the company remains owned by China.

Many Western countries are also taking action against other Chinese technology companies over their security concerns.

What restrictions have been imposed against TikTok?

TikTok is a short video creation and sharing platform owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.

Launched in 2016, the platform has become the third most popular internet platform in the world, with more than 1 billion monthly active users.

The app has been blocked on government agencies in Canada, Belgium, Denmark, New Zealand, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The European Union also asked its employees to remove the application from official phones, and also recommended that it be removed from private devices on which official applications are installed.

India has also banned TikTok completely due to security concerns.

While Afghanistan banned it to prevent "misleading" young people.