Recent reports have revealed that a member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has made a case for Google and Apple to takedown the TikTok application from their respective app stores as concerns over user data being exposed to the Chinese government, continue to rise.
The fears first began when it became public knowledge that the Chinese government owns technology company; ByteDance which is the parent company of TikTok.
A member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC); Brendan Carr wrote a letter to the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of Google and Apple requesting that they both take down TikTok from their respective app stores.
An attempt to ban TikTok had previously been made by the Trump administration. Upon its failure in court the policy was later rescinded by the Biden administration.
As at the time of putting this article together TikTok is banned in Afghanistan and India.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) member; Brendan Carr made it known to Apple and Alphabet which is the parent company of Google that if they decide to not take down TikTok from their app stores, they will until today the 8th of July 2022 to provide him with statements giving their reasons for not complying.
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It is expected that the statements to Brendan Carr will explain, “the basis for your company’s conclusion that the surreptitious access of private and sensitive U.S. user data by persons located in Beijing, coupled with TikTok’s pattern of misleading representations and conduct, does not run afoul of any of your app store policies.”
The letter by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) member was as a result of a report by BuzzFeed which via the help of leaked audio recordings from internal TikTok meetings made it known that all of the data collected by the social media platform regarding its users in the United States (US), is available to the officials at its ByteDance Headquarters situated in Beijing, China.
According to the BuzzFeed report an official at TikTok stated that, “Everything is seen in China.”
It was also revealed that an engineer based in Beijing, China “has access to everything” and is a “Master Admin.”
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) member; Brendan Carr believes this is significant because TikTok’s parent company; ByteDance, is required by the laws of China, to comply with any surveillance demands made by the world power’s government.
TikTok through its blog has made it known publicly that it is working towards migrating all United States (US) data to the United States (US) so as to protect it from China.
According to the social media behemoth, “Today, 100 percent of US user traffic is being routed to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. We still use our US and Singapore data centers for backup, but as we continue our work we expect to delete US users’ private data from our own data centers and fully pivot to Oracle cloud servers located in the US.”
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CNBC however believes that the statement by TikTok is contradictory to a previous statement it made saying, “Like many global companies, TikTok has engineering teams around the world… our engineers in locations outside of the US, including China, can be granted access to U.S. user data on an as-needed basis.”
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of TikTok; Shou Zi Chew alluded to this via a letter to senators in the United States (US). In the letter which was published by the New York Times, he admitted that a number of the employees of TikTok who are based in China are able to access user data from the United States (US), “subject to a series of robust cybersecurity controls and authorization approval protocols overseen by our U.S.-based security team.”
The TikTok Chief Executive Officer (CEO) however made it known that the Chinese government has not requested for any user data for users in the United States (US) and that TikTok will not make said user data available if it was ever asked to.
While this provides a certain level of reassurance, it sadly does not deal with the fact that China still retains unlimited legal power over all its companies. This means that even though the Chinese government has requested user data for TikTok users in the United States (US) and even though the social media platform has made it clear that it would decline if such a request was ever made, there is currently no deterrent in place to prevent the government from inputting government employees at TikTok’s and by extension ByteDance’s HQ (Headquarters) in Beijing, China.
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Some observers believe that the engineer based in Beijing, China who “has access to everything” and is a “Master Admin”, could possibly be a Chinese Intelligence officer.
As things stand currently, the decision by the social media giant to migrate all its user data for TikTok users in the United States (US) to the United States (US) via its partnership with Oracle, is a wise one and while the decision would have been enough to reassure and appease regulators in the United States (US) the fact that TikTok basically admitted that a number of its employees in China are able to access user data from the United States (US), has put it in a tight spot.
Time will tell what the decision will be in the United States (US) Congress and in courts in the United States (US).
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