Senate Intelligence Committee Leaders Warner and Rubio Call on FTC to Investigate TikTok

Pressure’s mounting to throw TikTok again into the regulatory highlight, this time from a bipartisan pair of U.S. senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

On Tuesday, the committee’s Democratic Chairman Mark Warner, and Republican Vice Chairman Senator Marco Rubio known as on the Federal Trade Commission to research the app over current reviews alleging China-based employees had been granted entry to U.S. person information. The Senators’ calls for come amid rising pushback from a cohort of largely Republican lawmakers and only one week after a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission wrote a scathing letter calling on Apple and Google to 86 the app from their App Stores.

In their letter addressed to FTC Chair Lina Khan, the lawmakers cited leaked TikTok audio from a current BuzzFeed News report that allegedly contains 14 statements from 9 staff who admit engineers had entry to U.S. person information for 5 months between September 2021 and January 2022. That revelation allegedly flies within the face of earlier information safety assurances supplied by TikTok executives. According to the senators, TikTok’s “apparent deception” warrants the quick opening of an FTC probe.

“We ask that your agency immediately initiate a Section 5 investigation on the basis of apparent deception by TikTok, and coordinate this work with any national security or counter-intelligence investigation that may be initiated by the U.S. Department of Justice,” the senators wrote of their letter.

“For years, TikTok has assured lawmakers that user data—and business operations—were effectively firewalled from the People’s Republic of China,” Warner stated in an announcement. “I’m working with [Marco Rubio] in light of reports neither claim is true.”

According to the recordings obtained by BuzzFeed, at the least eight totally different TikTok staff stated they weren’t granted permission to entry information on their very own and described conditions the place they needed to flip to their China-based colleagues for approval.

“TikTok’s Trust and Safety department was aware of these improper access practices and governance irregularities, which— according to internal recordings of TikTok deliberations—offered PRC-based employees unfettered access to user information, including birthdates, phone numbers, and device identification information,” the senators added.

The FTC didn’t instantly reply to Gizmodo’s request for remark.

Warner and Rubio went on to quote a pair of not too long ago handed Chinese nationwide safety legal guidelines which they declare, “provide extensive and extra-judicial access opportunities,” that would, in impact, make TikTok’s efforts to host U.S. person information on U.S. servers a moot level. “Under these authorities, the CCP may compel access, regardless of where data is ultimately stored,” the senators wrote.

It’s beginning to really feel like 2019 over again

Warner’s addition to the TikTok criticism hearth provides a sprinkling of bipartisanship to mounting safety issues up to now overwhelmingly voiced by lawmakers from the proper facet of the political aisle. Those issues had been made official final week when Tennessee Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn and eight of her fellow conservative lawmakers despatched an open letter to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew expressing concerns TikTok officers misrepresented themselves publicly and underneath oath in entrance of the Senate Commerce Committee.

“The implications of these findings are stark, but not surprising,” the Republican lawmakers wrote. “Rather, they simply confirm what lawmakers long suspected about TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance—they are using their access to a treasure trove of U.S. consumer data to surveil Americans.”

A TikTok spokesperson defended the corporate’s information safety efforts in an announcement despatched to Gizmodo.

“For two years, we’ve talked openly about our work to limit access to user data across regions, and in our letter to senators last week we were clear about our progress in limiting access even further through our work with Oracle,” the spokesperson stated. “As we’ve said repeatedly, TikTok has never shared U.S. user data with the Chinese government, nor would we if asked.”

Chew himself wrote a prolonged response letter to the Republican lawmakers in an try to assuage their issues. In his letter, Chew tried to pour water over the much-cited BuzzFeed article which he claims incorporates, “allegations and insinuations that are incorrect and are not supported by facts.” Despite these denials, Chew himself confirmed in his letter that China-based staff can certainly have entry to U.S. person information underneath sure situations.

If all of this feels acquainted, it’s as a result of we’ve largely been right here earlier than. Back in 2019 then-president Donald Trump, allegedly flummoxed by Chinese surveillance claims, signed an government order threatening to ban the app except ByteDance offered the united statessegment of its enterprise to an American agency. That order took various left turns however ultimately ended with Oracle becoming a “trusted technology partner,” to TikTok. The firm simply final month claimed it has formally completed its migration of U.S. person’s information to Oracle servers, however current reviews forged doubt on the validity of significance of these claims.

Just just like the final spherical of TikTok alarmism although, it’s laborious to see how this current sputtering of issues will lead to something radically altering the best way Americans work together with TikTok. Simply put, the app’s simply gotten too rattling huge. Recent forecasts from eMarketer present person time spent on TikTok has already shot previous Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. TikTok was additionally reportedly the top downloaded app within the U.S. And, I imply, hell, TikTok bought extra site visitors final 12 months than Google!

So, continued lawmaker pushback or not, it doesn’t appear to be TikTok’s going anyplace.

You can learn Warner and Rubio’s letter in its entirety right here.