The Minister points out that it is possible that TikTok will provide data to the Chinese government. In China, there is a law that can oblige companies to cooperate with the government. That law must be nuanced, say privacy experts. TikTok could still refuse this.
To this day, the company also emphasizes that it has never cooperated with their government, and never will. The company has already admitted that Chinese employees have had access to data from European users in the past. This led to a tightening of their privacy policy.