A US Senate committee on Tuesday asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether Chinese authorities are accessing US user data through the TikTok app.
The letter, signed by the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Democrat Mark Warner, and the vice president, Republican Marco Rubio, urges the Commission to study in detail the use that Chinese engineers and officials could make of the data collected by TikTok. . and the owner of the social network, the Chinese ByteDance Technology.
We write in response to public reports about individuals from the PRC accessing US user data, contradicting other public statements and specifically sworn testimony in October 2021,” the letter says.
The senators also highlighted the company’s relationship with the Chinese governmentwho owns a stake in ByteDance.
In the letter, the Intelligence Committee cites an article from the news portal Buzzfeed, published in mid-June, which claims that Chinese employees of TikTok and ByteDance regularly access sensitive data of American users, according to recordings of internal company meetings. .
TikTok confirmed this informationbut he assured Agence France Presse (AFP) that “he has never shared data from US users with the Chinese government and would not do so if asked.”
The Buzzfeed article claims that the company transfers some of the collected data to employees in Beijing.
This despite TikTok representatives denying, during a US Congressional hearing in October 2021, any contact between the app and the Chinese government.
Recent updates to TikTok’s privacy policy, indicating that it may collect biometric data such as facial prints and voice recordings, raise concerns that US user data may be vulnerable to extrajudicial access by third parties. China’s security agencies,” the letter added.
TikTok has been under scrutiny since 2019when former US President Donald Trump (2017-2021) demanded that ByteDance sell the application to US companies to continue operating in the country, a measure that was never implemented.
On Monday, Brazil opened an administrative procedure to investigate whether the Chinese social network TikTok violates the rights established in the Consumer Protection Code, such as protection against harmful content.
In Europe, TikTok pledged last week to bring its practices in line with EU rules on advertising and consumer protection, following dialogue with the European Commission and the network of national consumer protection authorities.
Source: Observadora
