Senators Ask U.S. Intelligence To Investigate Potential Security Risks of TikTok and Chinese-Owned Companies

Chuck Schumer and Tom Cotton sent a letter to the director of national intelligence expressing concerns about ByteDance, which owns the video app TikTok.

• By Haley Samsel
• Oct 28, 2019

Senators are questioning whether the popular video app TikTok, used by millions of mostly young users in the U.S., could pose national security risks to Americans’ personal data.

On Wednesday, Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader, teamed up with Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas to send a formal letter to acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire about ByteDance, a Chinese company that owns TikTok. The senators requested that intelligence officers conduct an assessment of how TikTok and other Chinese companies could pose potential security risks to the U.S.

“While the company has stated that TikTok does not operate in China and stores U.S. user data in the U.S., ByteDance is still required to adhere to the laws of China,” the letter reads. “Importantly, security experts have voiced concern that China’s intelligence, national security, and cybersecurity laws compel Chinese companies to support and cooperate with intelligence work controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.”

Schumer and Cotton requested a Congressional briefing on the intelligence community’s findings. The letter also raises concerns about the potential for censorship or manipulation on TikTok, which allows users to post short videos set against popular music. The app has gained massive popularity over the past few years, with over 110 million downloads in the U.S. alone.

In the past, TikTok has been accused of censoring material that are potentially offensive to the Chinese Communist Party, including content pertaining to the Hong Kong protests, Tiananmen Square and treatment of the Uighurs, the Muslim minority that is facing persecution in China.