A commissioner of the U.S. communications regulator is asking Apple and Google to consider banning TikTok from their app stores for data security issues related to the Chinese-owned company.
Brendan Carr, commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), has written a letter to the CEOs of both companies, warning them that the popular video sharing app does not meet the requirements of its app store policies .
“TikTok isn’t what it seems to be on the surface. It’s not just an app for sharing funny videos or memes. This is sheep’s clothing,” Carr said in the letter. “At its core, TikTok functions as a sophisticated surveillance tool that collects large amounts of personal and sensitive data.”
“It is clear that TikTok poses an unacceptable national security risk due to its extensive data collection that is combined with Beijing’s seemingly uncontrolled access to such sensitive data.”
TikTok is not just a video app anymore.
This is the clothes of the sheep.
It collects sensitive data that new reports show is being accessed in Beijing.
I called
a href = “& pic.twitter.com/Le01fBpNjn
– @ BrendanCarrFCC
In the letter, Carr lists several cases of the company violating various privacy and data security laws around the world. Ask Google and Apple to remove the ability to use the app on their phones.
If they refuse to do so before July 8, ask them for an answer that explains “the basis of your company’s conclusion that surreptitious access to private and sensitive US user data by people located in Beijing , along with TikTok’s pattern of misleading representations and conduct, does not violate any of your app store policies. “
The letter comes after U.S. news channel Buzzfeed reported last week that mainland Chinese entities have repeatedly accessed data on U.S. users. TikTok later announced that it plans to “delete the private data of U.S. users from our own data centers and move it completely to Oracle cloud servers located in the U.S.,” the company said.
It is not the first time the company has been criticized in the US for its ties to the Chinese government. Former United States President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized the company, even trying to ban the company through an executive order.
India banned the company in 2020. TikTok briefly held talks with leading technology giants Microsoft and Oracle about the company’s purchase, in order to alleviate these fears about data security. These conversations, however, were fruitless.