FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday reaffirmed to lawmakers that TikTok poses a national security and privacy concern, potentially collecting and controlling the data of millions of Americans and swaying public opinion. Wray, who was testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee on worldwide threats, agreed with lawmakers that TikTok, which is owned by Chinese-based company ByteDance, has the ability to collect information on American citizens if it wanted to.
In a strategy shift, the Biden administration is increasingly pointing to Congress to give it more legal power to deal with TikTok and other technology that could expose Americans’ sensitive data to China.
The company’s internal investigation showed that workers also obtained data on a small number of other U.S. users.
A draft agreement with the Biden administration to keep the Chinese-owned video app operating in the United States is under review. That could mean more wrangling.
Chinese parent ByteDance has settled a class-action lawsuit alleging that the video-sharing app failed to get users consent to collect data in violation of a strict Illinois privacy law.
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The Federal Trade Commission on Monday voted to issue orders to nine major internet platforms requiring information about how they handle data for a new study. The orders, which do not implicate any legal wrongdoing, were sent to Amazon, ByteDance (the parent company of TikTok), Discord, Facebook, Reddit, Snap, Twitter, WhatsApp and Youtube. The agency is requesting information about how the platforms collect, use, track or estimate personal and demographic information.
The White House did not extend a Dec. 4 deadline for the Chinese internet company ByteDance to sell TikTok.
Bytedance, the parent company of TikTok, was granted another 7-day extension from the U.S. Treasury on Wednesday afternoon to divest from its American assets. TikTok was given a two-week extension earlier this month to have its divestment plan approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, but that was set to expire on Friday.
ByteDance and Oracle Corp issued conflicting statements on Monday over the terms of an agreement they reached with the White House over the weekend to allow TikTok to continue to operate in the United States, casting doubt on President Donald Trump’s preliminary blessing of the deal.
The Commerce Department said President Trump’s proposed ban of the apps WeChat and TikTok will go into effect Sunday, Sept. 20, to “safeguard the national security of the United States.” The order follows weeks of dealmaking over the video-sharing service TikTok. President Donald Trump has pressured the app’s Chinese owner to sell TikTok’s U.S. operations to a domestic company to satisfy U.S. concerns over TikTok’s data collection and related issues.
New Chinese government restrictions could complicate ByteDance plans to sell TikTok to a U.S. company and avoid a ban threatened by Donald Trump. Late on Friday, Beijing issued new restrictions or bans on tech exports, requiring companies to seek government approval — a process that can take up to 30 days. In mid-August, Trump gave the company 90 days to sell or face a shutdown.
In a statement Sunday, Microsoft said it and Chinese company ByteDance have provided notice of their intent to explore a deal resulting in Microsoft owning and operating the TikTok service in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The company said it expects those talks to conclude by Sept. 15.
