Over 25 US Congress members have sent a letter to President Donald Trump asking him to take “decisive action” against Tiktok. The letter, dated July 15, asks the US President to follow India’s lead and ban TikTok from the country to protect user privacy and safety.
Previously, India banned many Chinese apps, claiming that the apps steal user data and send it off to servers outside the nation where it could be exploited. India said apps, including UC Browser, ShareIT, Tiktok, and others with millions of downloads, pose a threat to the country’s security.
Now, it appears the US is also trying to do something similar. The letter claims that TikTok and its parent company ByteDance can share private data of US citizens with the Chinese communist party (CCP) given the country’s “onerous cyber security laws.”
While the U.S. congressmen lauded India’s harsh actions, the bunch warned that TikTok’s data collection for the Chinese government’s purposes is not unique to Indian consumers.
In the letter, we also see a snippet of TikTok’s privacy policy for US citizens. The app mentions automatic collection of IP addresses, GPS location, identifies, search history on the platform, and more. Another snippet states that the company collects information shared from third-party tools if being used to sign up or sign in.
TikTok has been in the bad books of experts for a very long time. It has frequently censored content, especially videos that are targeted at China, and often failed to weed out offensive videos.
Meanwhile, TikTok alternative from Facebook, known as Instagram reels, has been scheduled to launch in the US market by early August.
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