FCC Commissioner Asks Apple and Google to Remove TikTok from App Stores

30 JUNE 2022 - A commissioner with the FCC wants Apple and Google to either remove TikTok from their respective app stores or explain to him why they will not. A piece from CNBC says Republican-appointed commissioner Brendan Carr has written to the CEO’s of the two companies warning of user information accessible by TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company ByteDance.  According to the report:

Carr's letter cited a BuzzFeed News report from earlier in the month that said recordings of TikTok employee statements indicated engineers in China had access to U.S. data between September 2021 and January 2022.

Carr’s letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Picha warned the executives:

TikTok is not what it appears to be on the surface. It is not just an app for sharing funny videos or meme. That's the sheep's clothing… At its core, TikTok functions as a sophisticated surveillance tool that harvests extensive amounts of personal and sensitive data.

For its part, TikTok has issued what’s supposed to sound like a denial but kind of doesn’t? In a statement to CNBC a TikTok spokesperson said:

Like many global companies, TikTok has engineering teams around the world. We employ access controls like encryption and security monitoring to secure user data, and the access approval process is overseen by our US-based security team. TikTok has consistently maintained that our engineers in locations outside of the US, including China, can be granted access to U.S. user data on an as-needed basis under those strict controls.

Okay - but if you have the key and your boss says “unlock the door,” you’re unlocking the door, right?

No comment from Apple nor Google for the CNBC piece. Carr is looking for either the removal of the app or answers from the companies explaining why it’s not been removed by Friday 8 July.