Democratic senator urges Apple and Google to ban TikTok from their app stores.

A member of the US Senate Intelligence Committee is calling on Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores over concerns about national security, in the latest indication of mounting scrutiny on the short-form video app from members of Congress.

In a letter sent to the two tech giants on Thursday, Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet calls TikTok “an unacceptable threat to the national security of the United States” and cites the same concerns that have prompted the federal government and more than half of US states to restrict TikTok from official devices and networks.

Writing to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Bennet highlighted fears that China could use its national security laws to force TikTok or its parent, ByteDance, to hand over the personal information of the app’s US users.

The laws in question, Bennet wrote, require organizations in the country to “cooperate with state intelligence work” and to allow the government to access company resources. ByteDance’s founder is Chinese and the company has offices in China. TikTok has also disclosed to European users that their data may be accessed by employees based in China.

China could potentially try to shape what US users see on the app, Bennet warned, with possible implications for foreign policy and democracy.

Source: https://edition.cnn.com

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