Brendan Carr, a member of the Federal Communications Commission is calling Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores, citing national security concerns surrounding TikTok’s Chinese-based parent company, ByteDance.
In a letter shared via Twitter, Carr pointed to reports and other developments that made TikTok non-compliant with the two companies’ app store policies.
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
The document dated June 24 on FCC letterhead, said if Apple and Google do not remove TikTok from their app stores, they should provide statements to him by July 8.
“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.”
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,” he said.
Trump nominated Carr in 2018 for a five-year term with the FCC. The Senate confirmed in December that the commission’s chair, Jessica Rosenworcel, would stay on for another five-year term.
Carr’s letter cited a BuzzFeed News report from earlier in the month that said recordings of TikTok employee statements indicated engineers in China had access to U.S. data between September 2021 and January 2022.
The FCC has no role in regulating internet-based services such as app stores, and prior efforts by the US government to ban TikTok from US app stores have faltered amid court challenges. The decision about how and whether the FCC should act would require the approval of Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, who leads the agency.
