WASHINGTON / NEW YORK, June 29 (Reuters) – A Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission has urged CEOs of Apple Inc. (AAPL.O) and Google of Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL.O) to oust TikTok from Chinese ownership of its app stores.
Brendan Carr, the FCC commissioner, said in a letter to CEOs, dated June 24 and sent with the FCC headline, that the TikTok video sharing app has collected large amounts of sensitive data about northern users. Americans that ByteDance staff in Beijing could access. ByteDance is the Chinese father of TikTok.
Carr tweeted details of the letter Tuesday.
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“TikTok is not just another video app. This is sheep’s clothing,” Carr said on Twitter. “It collects strips of sensitive data that the new reports show is being accessed in Beijing.”
Carr asked companies to remove TikTok from their app stores before July 8 or explain to him why they didn’t plan to do so.
Carr’s request is unusual because the FCC does not have clear jurisdiction over the content of app stores. The FCC normally regulates the national security space through its authority to grant certain communications licenses to companies.
A TikTok spokeswoman said the company’s engineers at locations outside the United States, including China, could have access to U.S. user data “as needed” and under “strict controls.”
Google declined to comment on Carr’s letter, while Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
TikTok has been under US regulatory control over its collection of US personal data. The U.S. Foreign Investment Committee (CFIUS), which reviews offers from foreign buyers for potential national security risks, ordered ByteDance in 2020 to divest TikTok for fear that data from U.S. users could pass to the communist government of China.
To address these concerns, TikTok said earlier this month that it migrated information from its U.S. users to Oracle Corp. (ORCL.N) servers. Read more
A spokesman for the U.S. Treasury Department, which chairs CFIUS, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“What we’re seeing here from Commissioner Carr is a suggestion that at least some parts of the U.S. government don’t think that’s enough,” Richard Sofield, national security partner at law firm Vinson & Elkins LLP, said on TikTok. association with Oracle.
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Report by Diane Bartz in Washington, DC and Echo Wang in New York; Edited by Leslie Adler
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