The TikTok soap opera is experiencing a new episode. The application, which Donald Trump unsuccessfully sought to have removed in the United States, is again under threat of removal from application stores. And this time, the espionage charge file is really loaded.
The TikTok app soon to be removed from the App Store and the Play Store? In any case, this is the request made to Tim Cook (Apple) and Sundar Pichai (Google) by Brendan Carr, the head of the American FCC. The powerful Federal Communications Commission has given the two platforms until July 8 to react, either by removing the social network from their stores or by explaining why it is still online.
Siphoning of personal data
The matter is serious. A site survey BuzzFeed has got hold of the recordings of more than 80 meetings at ByteDance, the Chinese publisher of TikTok, during which it is revealed that engineers from the group have access to the data of American users of the application. Facts that took place between September 2021 and January 2022.
According BuzzFeed, there is even a “master admin” who, still at ByteDance, can access any data at any time. The accusation of espionage is therefore relaunched with a vengeance, this was also what the Trump administration and the former American president advanced when he launched hostilities against TikTok, during the summer of 2020.
Brendan Carr called TikTok ” sophisticated monitoring tool which collects as much data as possible, from search history to keystrokes and even biometric identifiers, not to mention location information.
The publisher has however sworn that the data collected by the application in the United States would be stored in the country. But according to this investigation, nothing has been done, despite this agreement with Oracle to keep these famous data on American soil. It should however be remembered that this partnership, already described as baroque at the time, has always remained vague. Can TikTok weather this new storm?
