U.S. FCC commissioner has requests google and Apple to take off TikTok from app stores

On 24^th June 2022, Brendan Carr the Federal Communication Commission Commissioner has sent a letter to CEO’s of Apple and Google requesting to remove TikTok from their app stores or to provide an explanation on why they think there should not.

The reason for this request as mentioned in the letter is “It is clear that TikTok poses an unacceptable national security risk due to its extensive data harvesting being combined with Beijing’s apparently unchecked access to that sensitive data,”

“TikTok has long claimed that its U.S. user data has been stored on servers in the U.S. and yet those representations provided no protection against the data being accessed from Beijing. Indeed, TikTok’s statement that ‘100% of U.S. user traffic is being routed to Oracle’ says nothing about where that data can be accessed from.” Carr further mentioned in the letter.

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

Apple has not yet responds to the request while Google has declined comment on Carr’s letter

Source

https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-fcc-commissioner-urges-apple-google-boot-tiktok-app-stores-2022-06-29/