That is the opinion that Brendan Carr – commissioner of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) made after consulting the recording of 80 internal meetings leaked from TikTok posted on BuzzFeed News recently.
According to Engadget, the leaked audio recording shows that ByteDance’s TikTok employees based in China have repeatedly accessed the personal information of users in the US.
A member of TikTok’s Trust and Safety department told a meeting in September 2021 that “everything is seen in China”. One director said in another meeting that an engineer in Beijing known as “Master Admin” has “access to everything”.
It is known that just hours before BuzzFeed News published the report, TikTok announced it had moved 100% of US user traffic to the new Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. It’s part of the company’s efforts to address concerns raised by US authorities about how it handles information from domestic users.
However, in his letter, Brendan Carr listed many other reports that showed evidence related to TikTok’s data breach issue, in which researchers found the app could disrupt user accounts. Android and iOS safeguards to access sensitive user data. He also cited TikTok’s 2021 decision to pay $92 million to settle dozens of lawsuits, mostly from minors, accusing TikTok of collecting personal data without consent and selling them. for advertisers.
Brendan Carr said: “It is clear that TikTok poses an unacceptable national security risk due to its extensive data collection combined with the seemingly unchecked access rights of the Chinese government. the country into that sensitive data”.
Mr. Carr has given Apple and Google until July 8 to explain why the app won’t be removed from its store if it refuses to do so.