A member of the Federal Communications Fee has requested Google and Apple to take away TikTok from their app shops, citing considerations that the favored Chinese language-owned video app might ship American information again to Beijing.
In a letter to the businesses launched on Tuesday, Brendan Carr, a Republican commissioner, mentioned he believed that “TikTok’s sample of conduct and misrepresentations concerning the unfettered entry that individuals in Beijing need to delicate U.S. consumer information” violated Apple’s and Google’s requirements and that TikTok must be taken out of the app shops.
Mr. Carr’s request is unlikely to realize traction as a result of the F.C.C. doesn’t regulate the app shops and the fee’s agenda is basically set by its Democratic chairwoman. However it reveals the sustained strain on Chinese language tech corporations from officers in Washington.
Policymakers have lengthy nervous that TikTok’s Chinese language mother or father firm, ByteDance, might expose its information to the Chinese language authorities. Former President Donald J. Trump tried to drive ByteDance to promote the app or face expulsion from app shops in 2020. At one level, the Trump administration introduced a deal by which Oracle, the American cloud computing firm, would have taken over a few of the firm. The sale by no means got here to fruition.
The Biden administration has thought-about different measures to maintain American information away from China however has not publicly pushed TikTok to chop ties with its Chinese language proprietor.
TikTok has maintained that it’s taking steps to maintain staff in China from having access to its information. Shortly earlier than a current information report revealed it was struggling to take action, it mentioned it was routing all information from its U.S. customers by means of servers managed by Oracle.
Brooke Oberwetter, a spokeswoman for TikTok, mentioned the corporate was partaking with lawmakers who had requested questions on its information practices. Jose Castaneda, a Google spokesman, declined to remark. Apple and the F.C.C. didn’t reply to requests for remark.
In his letter, Mr. Carr mentioned he didn’t imagine TikTok’s efforts would make a distinction.
“TikTok has lengthy claimed that its U.S. consumer information has been saved on servers within the U.S., and but these representations supplied no safety in opposition to the info being accessed from Beijing,” he wrote. “Certainly, TikTok’s assertion that ‘100% of US consumer site visitors is being routed to Oracle’ says nothing about the place that information will be accessed from.”