[ad_1]
Chinese-owned TikTok’s U.S. operations raise national security concerns, FBI Director Chris Wray said on Tuesday, noting the risk that the Chinese government could use the video-sharing app to influence users or take control of their devices .
Risks include “the potential for the Chinese government to use it to control data collection for millions of users or control recommendation algorithms that could be used to influence operations,” Wray told U.S. lawmakers.
Beijing could also use a popular app owned by ByteDance to “control the software on millions of devices,” giving it the opportunity to “technically compromise” those devices, he added.
The U.S. government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which reviews acquisitions by foreign acquirers in the U.S. for potential national security risks, ordered ByteDance in 2020 amid concerns that U.S. user data could be passed on to the Chinese Communist government. Strip TikTok.
CFIUS and TikTok have been negotiating for months to reach a national security agreement to protect the data of TikTok’s more than 100 million users.
TikTok executive Vanessa Pappas told the U.S. Congress in September that TikTok was “making progress toward a final agreement with the U.S. government to further protect U.S. user data and comprehensively address U.S. national security interests.” “.
Asked about the FBI’s role in the CFIUS investigation, Wray said the agency’s foreign investment division is part of the CFIUS process. “Our views will be taken into account in any agreement that may be reached to resolve this issue,” he added.
Lei noted that Chinese companies are basically being asked to “do whatever the Chinese government wants them to do in terms of sharing information or acting as a tool of the Chinese government. So that in itself is reason enough to be of extreme concern.”
A TikTok spokesperson said: “As Director Wray noted in his remarks, the FBI’s input is being considered as part of our ongoing negotiations with the U.S. government. comment, but we believe we are on a path that fully addresses all legitimate U.S. national security concerns.”
Former President Donald Trump tried in 2020 to prevent new users from downloading WeChat and TikTok and ban other transactions that would have effectively blocked the use of the apps in the United States, but lost a series of court battles over the measure.
President Joe Biden in June 2021 withdrew a series of Trump executive orders that sought to ban new app downloads and ordered the Commerce Department to review the security concerns posed by the apps.
Any security agreement with TikTok should include data security requirements.
[ad_2]
Source link