Last updated on 20th September, 2022
Due to risks to national security, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) boss requests that TikTok be taken off of the App Store and Google Play Store.
TikTok is in trouble once more due to security issues. Brendan Carr, a member of the FCC’s board of directors, published a letter on Wednesday in which he urged Google and Apple to take the TikTok app out of their respective app stores.
TikTok has a history of “surreptitious data practices,” according to the FCC boss’ letter, which lists the information it is able to collect from its users.
Under the Trump administration, the US government made numerous unsuccessful attempts to regulate TikTok’s operations. Trump attempted to have TikTok removed from US app stores on the grounds that US users ran the risk of having their personal information disclosed to the Chinese government due to ByteDance’s ownership of the app.
“TikTok collects everything from search and browsing histories to keystroke patterns and biometric identifiers, including faceprints—which researchers have said might be used in unrelated facial recognition technology—and voice prints,” Carr alleges. “It collects location data as well as draft messages and metadata, plus it has collected the text, images, and videos that are stored on a device’s clipboard.”
In a subsequent tweet, Carr adds that TikTok’s data collection methods are a clear violation of both Apple and Google’s policies.
Finally, he says. “If you do not removed TikTok from your app stores, please provided separate responses to me by July 8, 2022, explaining the basis for your company’s conclusions that the surreptitious access of private and sensitive US 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.”
