Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has called on Apple and Alphabet to remove the popular social media platform TikTok from their app stores over national security concerns. Bennet claims the Chinese-owned company poses a threat to the US due to its data harvesting practices, which can be accessed by Chinese intelligence work in accordance with Chinese law.

Bennet’s letter to the tech giants echoes the same sentiments expressed by an FCC commissioner in June last year. He argues that TikTok’s reach and popularity allow it to collect sensitive data from American users, including device information, search and viewing histories, IP addresses, faceprints, and voiceprints.

The US government has already taken action against TikTok’s ties to China. In December, President Joe Biden signed a bill prohibiting the use of TikTok by nearly four million government employees on devices owned by its agencies. At least 27 state governments have passed similar measures.

In response to Bennet’s letter, TikTok released a statement claiming the claims were “misleading.” The company said they had implemented Project Texas, an investment plan to provide additional assurances to their community about their data security and the platform’s integrity.

TikTok has over 100 million active users, 36 percent American, who spend over 80 minutes daily on the app — more than Facebook and Instagram combined. There is no evidence that the Chinese government has demanded user data from TikTok or its parent company or influenced the content users to see on the platform. However, in November, TikTok confirmed that China-based employees could gain remote access to European user data, and a BuzzFeed report revealed that company employees in China had access to US user data.

The US Committee on Foreign Investment is reviewing ByteDance’s 2017 merger of TikTok and Musical.ly. It may force TikTok to sell to a US company, similar to the executive order issued by former President Donald Trump in 2020 — though it was blocked by a federal court.

In 2021, TikTok agreed to pay $92 million to settle lawsuits alleging that the app clandestinely transferred vast quantities of user data on children to servers in China. To curb criticism of its data-sharing practices, TikTok has announced a partnership with Oracle to move its data on US users stored on foreign servers to Texas.

Anupam Chander, a professor of law and technology at Georgetown University, warned that banning TikTok in the US may encourage other countries to do the same to apps and services from the US and that it is unclear if anything short of a sale will satisfy TikTok’s critics. TikTok’s chief executive Shou Zi Chew will appear before a House committee in March.

Source: foxnews.com