The app, which has already been banned from federal government devices by the US Congress, has been the subject of concerns that the Chinese government could use it to collect data on Americans.
Democratic Senator Michael Bennett said in a letter that TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, should be removed from app stores run by Apple and Google because the short video app is a national security risk.
The app, which has already been banned from federal government devices by the US Congress, has come under increasing criticism over concerns that the Chinese government could use it to collect data on Americans or further interests. Chinese.
“No company subject to the dictates of the Chinese Communist Party should have the ability to collect such extensive data on the American people or curate content for nearly a third of our population,” Bennett wrote in his letter to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. and Apple CEO Tim Cook.
“Given these risks, I urge you to remove TikTok from your app stores immediately,” he wrote.
Before Bennett’s letter, Republicans had largely led the attack on TikTok over national security concerns, though Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin had already urged Americans to stop using the app.
In the House of Representatives, which is now in the hands of the Republicans, the Foreign Relations Committee plans to vote this month on a bill aimed at blocking the use of TikTok in the US. users and blocks other transactions that would effectively prevent the use of TikTok. from being used in the US, but the lawsuit was dismissed by the courts.
For its part, the company says that the Chinese government cannot access the personal data of US citizens or manipulate the content of the application.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is expected to appear before the US House Committee on Commerce and Energy in March.