US FCC urges Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores

A Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission wants TikTok to vanish from Google's Play Store and Apple's App Store soon. FCC commissioner, Brendan Carr, has urged Apple and Google to ban the TikTok app from their app stores over data security concerns. TikTok is owned by Chinese parent company ByteDance, which came under fire when Donald Trump was president over national security concerns.

Brendan Carr tweeted: "TikTok is not just another video app. That's the sheep's clothing. It harvests swaths of sensitive data that new reports show is being accessed in Beijing." He reported that he asked Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores for its pattern of data surreptitious practices. He also shared a letter alongside the tweet on Tuesday detailing the reasons why Apple and Google should consider removing the TikTok app.

Carr said in the letter that TikTok has collected a large amount of sensitive data about US users. Furthermore, he warned that this date could be accessed by ByteDance staff in Beijing. Surprisingly, TikTok can not only access users' dance videos but collects search and browsing histories, keystroke patterns, biometric identifiers, draft messages and metadata, in addition to collecting the text, images and videos that are stored on a device's clipboard, Carr said.

Apart from this, the letter also mentions many other controversies that the video-sharing platform had to go through in recent years. This includes the transfer of data from the US to servers in China, access to user data, and how the Indian government banned the app in India.

He asked Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores by July 8. Otherwise, they will have to explain the reasons separately and explain the basis for not acting in an aforementioned manner before July 24.