U.S. FCC Commissioner Requests Google & Apple To Ban TikTok via @sejournal, @martinibuster

The United States Federal Communications Commission (FTC) commissioner accused TikTok of harvesting idiosyncratic information and called connected Apple and Google to region TikTok from their respective app stores.

China Access To User Data

Brendan Carr, the commissioner of the FTC, cited a BuzzFeed News report that China had full entree to idiosyncratic data.

Leaked audio from TikTok interior meetings indicated that China could entree each idiosyncratic information from September 2021 to January 2022.

The timing is important due to the fact that TikTok executives testified successful October 2021 that a U.S. information squad decides who has access.

It was against that backdrop that Mr. Carr sent a missive to Tim Cook, CEO of Apple and Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, requesting that they instrumentality enactment to region TikTok from their respective app stores.

The missive stated that TikTok is retired of compliance with Apple and Google’s presumption and policies.

The commissioner wrote:

“Last week, an alarming caller study shed caller airy connected the superior nationalist information threats posed by TikTok.

…TikTok is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance – an enactment that is beholden to the Communist Party of China and required by Chinese instrumentality to comply with the PRC’s surveillance demands.

It is wide that TikTok poses an unacceptable nationalist information hazard owed to its extended information harvesting being combined with Beijing’s seemingly unchecked entree to that delicate data.

…Therefore, I americium requesting that you use the plain substance of your app store policies to TikTok and region it from your app stores for nonaccomplishment to abide by those terms.”

Google’s Developer Distribution Agreement requires that products made disposable done the Google Play app store support idiosyncratic privacy.

The FCC commissioner tweeted:

“TikTok is not conscionable different video app.

That’s the sheep’s clothing.

It harvests swaths of delicate information that caller reports amusement are being accessed successful Beijing.

I’ve called connected @Apple & @Google to region TikTok from their app stores for its signifier of surreptitious information practices.”

He besides tweeted:

“Tiktok’s signifier of misrepresentations coupled with its ownership by an entity beholden to the CCP has resulted successful U.S. subject branches and nationalist information agencies banning it from authorities devices.

Bipartisan leaders successful some the Senate and House person flagged concerns.”

TikTok Still Available

TikTok remained disposable astatine some Apple and Google’s app stores, contempt the quality reports astir China’s quality to entree delicate idiosyncratic information from TikTok and the FCC commissioner’s telephone for TikTok to beryllium removed from Google’s app store.

Featured Image: Dima Cantemir Ph/Shutterstock

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