U.S. FCC Commissioner Asks Apple and Google to Remove TikTok from App Stores

One of the commissioners of the U.S. Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) has renewed calls asking for Apple and Google to
boot the popular video-sharing platform TikTok from their app
stores citing “its pattern of surreptitious data practices.”

“It is clear that TikTok poses an unacceptable national
security risk due to its extensive data harvesting being
combined with Beijing’s apparently unchecked access to that
sensitive data,” Brendan Carr, a Republican member of the FCC,
wrote^[1]
in a letter to Apple and Google’s chief executives.

TikTok, in September 2021, disclosed^[2]
that there are one billion people who use its app every month,
making it one of the largest social media platforms after Facebook,
YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, and WeChat.

Carr further emphasized that the short-form video service is far
from just an app for sharing funny videos or memes, calling out its
features as “sheep’s clothing” intended to mask its core function
as a “sophisticated surveillance tool” for amassing users’ personal
information.

The letter also references a litany of controversies that TikTok
found itself in over the years, including skirting Android safeguards^[3] to track users online,
accessing iOS clipboard^[4]
information, and settling a class-action lawsuit^[5] for $92 million over
allegations that it captured biometric and personal data from users
in the U.S. without prior consent.

TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance and has denied
ever sharing user data with the Chinese government, is back in the
spotlight close on the heels of revelations from BuzzFeed News^[6]
that U.S. users’ data had been repeatedly accessed by employees
based in China between September 2021 and January 2022 despite its
assurances to the contrary.

“Everything is seen in China,” a member of TikTok’s Trust and
Safety department was quoted as saying in a September 2021 meeting,
while in another meeting held that month, a director referred to a
Beijing-based engineer as a “Master Admin” who “has access to
everything.”

Last year, CNBC, citing former employees, similarly alleged^[7]
that the social media app’s Chinese parent company had access to
TikTok’s U.S. user data and that it’s closely involved in the
decision-making and product development.

In a statement shared with the business news publication, TikTok
said^[8]
engineers in locations outside of the U.S., including China, can be
permitted access to U.S. user data on an “as-needed basis” under
strict access controls.

TikTok has since announced^[9]
that it’s “changed the default storage location of U.S. user data”
and that it’s routing all information from its users in the country
through infrastructure controlled by Oracle. However, Carr noted
these efforts do not address the core concerns of data access.

“TikTok has long claimed that its U.S. user data has been stored
on servers in the U.S. and yet those representations provided no
protection against the data being accessed from Beijing.” Carr
said. “Indeed, TikTok’s statement that ‘100% of U.S. user traffic
is being routed to Oracle’ says nothing about where that data can
be accessed from.”

It’s worth noting that several U.S. military branches have
already banned its members from using TikTok on government-issued
devices due to possible security risks. In June 2020, the Indian
government moved^[10] to block the app^[11] on similar grounds.