The popular TikTok service has again come under fire from American politicians over claims that the Chinese are using it to track users in the United States. The bipartisan warning comes as the Biden administration considers a deal that would allow the app to continue operating in the United States.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner warned of the dangers of TikTok, which has more than 138 million active users in the US, calling it a “tremendous threat”. The Virginia Democrat has backed Donald Trump’s 2020 ban. The former president signed an executive order banning TikTok and WeChat in the US, but Biden withdrew the order in June. Biden’s new executive order directed the Commerce Department to review applications linked to foreign adversaries.
“Well, I think Donald Trump was right,” Warner told Shannon Bream on Fox News Sunday. “So if you’re a parent and you have a kid on TikTok, I would be very, very concerned. All the data your child enters and receives is stored somewhere in Beijing.”
Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton was equally categorical:
“It’s not just the content you upload to TikTok, it’s all the data on your phone, other apps, all your personal information, even your facial images, even where your eyes are looking on your phone,” he told Fox, adding , that TikTok is “One of the most massive surveillance programs ever created, esp [следящая] according to the young people of America”.
You should know that TikTok uses foreign nations with Chinese powers to host American citizens’ data—and why @SecMayorkas approved those visas.
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) November 14, 2022
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Recently, there have been increasing calls for tougher action against TikTok. Earlier this month, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said a national ban on the use of the Apple Store and Google Play apps was necessary. He said there was very little confidence in the company’s ability to properly handle user data in the US.
We should take note of @FBI advice on #TikTok. ?
— Lord Bethell (@JimBethell) November 17, 2022
Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin said they are introducing legislation to ban the use of TikTok in the United States. FBI Director Christopher Wray also warned the commission about the Chinese government’s access to user data.
The Biden administration is still considering a proposal that would allow TikTok to continue operating in the US. It should include routing the user’s traffic from the US through servers supported by Oracle, which will also verify the application’s algorithms. In addition, TikTok says it is working on a project that isolates data from US users so that only US employees can view it.
TikTok tracks even users who have never used the social network – their data on third-party sites is collected using special markers
Source: TechSpot
