A federal official issued a new warning to Apple and Google, urging tech giants to remove the China-based TikTok app from their app stores. In a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet, Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr cited a new Buzzfeed News report on the “serious threats to the national security that TikTok entails “.
The report, which analyzed the leaked audio from more than 80 TikTok internal meetings, found that employees of TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, had accessed non-public data on U.S. TikTok users. In 2021, TikTok executive Michael Beckerman told Congress that “TikTok actually collects less data than many of our peers.”
TikTok is not just another video app.
This is the sheep’s clothes.It collects strips of sensitive data that the new reports show is being accessed in Beijing.
I called @Poma & @Google to remove TikTok from its app stores for its surreptitious data practice pattern. pic.twitter.com/Le01fBpNjn
– Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) June 28, 2022
However, the BuzzFeed report found that ByteDance employees in Beijing have repeatedly accessed sensitive data that TikTok has collected from Americans downloading the app, allowing users to create, share, and react to short videos. .
“Everything is seen in China,” a member of TikTok’s trust and security department said at a September meeting, according to BuzzFeed.
Carr can’t force either Apple or Google to remove the free app from their stores, but said “Apple and Google present themselves as operating app stores that are safe and reliable places to download apps.” Statistics show that the app has been downloaded from these two app stores 19 million times in just the first quarter of 2022, Carr said.
“It is clear that TikTok poses an unacceptable risk to national security because of its extensive data that is combined with Beijing’s seemingly uncontrolled access to that data,” he said. TikTok’s “pattern of conduct and misrepresentation” about Beijing’s free access to sensitive data from U.S. users causes the social networking platform to fail to comply with Apple and Google policies.
President Donald Trump tried to ban the application with an executive order, which was immediately challenged in court. President Joe Biden replaced the failed ban with a new executive order in June 2021requesting a government review of foreign-owned applications and whether they pose any security risk.
The Biden administration pointed to China as an example of a country that “does not share these values and seeks to take advantage of Americans’ digital technologies and data in a way that poses unacceptable risks to national security while advancing controls and authoritarian interests “.
Other lawmakers have also pushed for TikTok to be held accountable. Following the release of the BuzzFeed report, Republican Senators Roger Wicker and Tom Cotton wrote a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen asking why the Biden administration has had a delayed response in investigating “the risks security and privacy that TikTok entails “. Four more Republican lawmakers signed the letter.
Wicker also joined Sen. Marsha Blackburn and others in a second letter to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew on Monday, citing the BuzzFeed report and Beckerman’s previous testimony.
“We are very concerned that, in light of these reports, the TikTok representative has not provided truthful answers to the Senate Trade Committee to the hearing of its subcommittee,” the letter says. “It appears that TikTok is now taking steps to divert its distortion of knowledge by changing the way employees can access ‘protected’ data.
The group asked several questions to the CEO of TikTok, including, “Is it true that TikTok employees located in China currently have, or had in the past, access to U.S. data?” as well as a question about the application algorithm and the involvement of the Chinese government.
Earlier this year, state attorneys general released one national research on TikTok and its possible harmful effects on the mental health of young users, expanding government scrutiny of the popular video platform. Research from several states and led by California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee and Vermont.
In response to the BuzzFeed report and questions from lawmakers, a TikTok spokesman said the company “is doing exactly what it said it would do: address concerns about access to US user data by of employees outside the US “.
“We’ve been clear and clear about our work in this area as we seek to address both location and access to data. We’re pleased that we’re now routing 100% of U.S. user traffic to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and continuing to work. in additional safeguards on U.S. data to improve the peace of mind of our community, “the statement said.
A TikTok spokesman also said the company “would contact lawmakers to clarify records on BuzzFeed’s misleading reports” and that “it has consistently maintained that our engineers at locations outside the U.S., including China, can have access.” in the US “. user data as required under these strict controls “.
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- Federal Communications Commission
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