Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Mark Warner (D-VA) have called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Chinese-owned social media app TikTok and its employees based in China’s access to US user data. Senators believe the “repeated misrepresentations of the Chinese company” deserve deep scrutiny by the federal government.
Reuters Reports Senators Marco Rubio and Mark Warner called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Chinese-owned social media app TikTok and parent company ByteDance after “repeated misrepresentations” of companies handling US data.
(Luisa Nalimova/Getty)
The request comes after multiple reports of TikTok engineers and executives in China having access to the private data of US users. “In light of the repeated misrepresentations by TikTok regarding data security, data processing and corporate governance practices, we urge you to act immediately on this matter,” the senators wrote to FTC Chair Lina Khan.
Breitbart News recently reported that TikTok revealed that some of the company’s employees based in China had access to the personal information of US users. The company’s admission came in a letter to nine US senators who have accused TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance Ltd. monitoring of American citizens.
The senators asked TikTok if employees based in China had access to US users’ data, what role those employees played in developing the TikTok algorithm, and whether any of this information was shared with the Chinese government.
The CEO of TikTok parent company ByteDance, Shou Zi Chew, said on June 30 message That employees based in China who scan a number of internal security protocols can access certain information about TikTok users residing in the United States, including videos and public comments. Chew claims that none of this information is shared with the Chinese government and is subject to “strong cybersecurity controls”.
Read more on Reuters here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter at Breitbart News who covers issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter Tweet embed Or contact via secure email at lucasnolan@protonmail.com
