FCC Commissioner Demands Apple and Google Remove TikTok from App Stores

Days after the news that TikTok’s Chinese employees have access to the data of U.S. users, a fresh move to stop the high-flying short-form video app has started.

On Tuesday, a leader of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, shared a letter dated June 24, where he asked both Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores over concerns that China is using it harvest private data of Americans.

“TikTok is not what it appears to be on the surface. It is not just an app for sharing funny videos or meme. That’s the sheep’s clothing,” he said in the letter. “At its core, TikTok functions as a sophisticated surveillance tool that harvests extensive amounts of personal and sensitive data.”

TikTok is not just another video app.
That’s the sheep’s clothing.

It harvests swaths of sensitive data that new reports show are being accessed in Beijing.

I’ve called on @Apple & @Google to remove TikTok from their app stores for its pattern of surreptitious data practices. pic.twitter.com/Le01fBpNjn

— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) June 28, 2022

TikTok’s unending troubles in the U.S. stems from its ownership by Chinese company ByteDance. The app came under intense scrutiny under former president Donald Trump, who wanted it banned in the U.S. to prevent national security breach.

Carr’s letter, which he shared via Twitter to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, referenced a recent BuzzFeed report that TikTok’s engineers in China accessed U.S. data between September 2021 and January 2022. The letter also pointed to reports that TikTok is non-compliant with Google and Apple stores policies, asking the CEOs to remove the app or provide statement to him latest July 8.

Carr who was nominated by Trump in 2018 to a five-year term with the FCC, demanded that the statements should 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.”

TikTok’s U.S. ordeal, which seemed to have been laid to rest after Trump’s executive order to ban it failed, is once again resuscitated by the BuzzFeed report. Trump’s successor, President Joe Biden rescinded most of the orders targeting the operation of Chinese apps in the United States.

Though Washington is yet to react to the development, the move by the FCC signals a fresh government’s interest in TikTok’s U.S. operation that may escalate to wider scrutiny once again.

TikTok said in response to BuzzFeed report that given how the app is scrutinized, it is working to remove every doubt that U.S. consumers’ data is accessed by the Chinese government.

“We know we’re among the most scrutinized platforms from a security standpoint, and we aim to remove any doubt about the security of US user data. That’s why we hire experts in their fields, continually work to validate our security standards, and bring in reputable, independent third parties to test our defenses,” it said.

TikTok said part of the steps it’s taking to protect users’ data is to reroute all of U.S. user traffic to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

“We’ve now reached a significant milestone in that work: we’ve changed the default storage location of US user data. Today, 100% 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,” it said.

Both Cook and Pichai are yet to respond to Carr’s demands.