In past posts we shared a bit of information about the TikTok case, in which basically was accused of transferring private user data to servers in China, despite the company's guarantees that it does not store personal data there.
then a class action lawsuit was filed in California Federal Court, claiming that TikTok illegally and covertly collected large amounts of personal data from identifiable users and sent it to China. The complaint also concerns ByteDance, its parent company.
Furthermore, at the beginning of August, The president of United States, Donald Trump, issued executive orders to ban US transactions with WeChat, the messaging app owned by Tencent Holdings, and ByteDance, owner of TikTok, within 45 days, describing the Chinese companies as threats to national security.
The reasons that are given in the decree to combat the threat posed by WeChat
“WeChat automatically captures vast areas of information from its users. This data collection threatens to allow the Communist Party of China to access personal and proprietary information of Americans. Furthermore, the app captures the personal and proprietary information of Chinese citizens visiting the United States, thus providing the Chinese Communist Party with a mechanism to control Chinese citizens who could enjoy the benefits of a free society for the first time in their lives. lives. «
The US Department of Commerce says the measure will go into effect on Sunday, September 20, 2020
In response to executive orders of President Trump signed on August 6, 2020, The Department of Commerce today announced bans on transactions related to WeChat and TikTok mobile apps to "protect the national security of the United States."
In its communication, the ministry specifies that “the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has demonstrated that it has the means and the motives to use these applications to threaten national security, foreign policy and the economy of the United States. The bans announced today, when combined, protect users in the United States by removing access to those applications and dramatically reducing their functionality.
According to the ministry:
“While the threats posed by WeChat and TikTok are not the same, they are similar. Each collects vast amounts of user data, including network activity, location data, and search and browsing histories. Each is an active participant in China's civil-military merger and is subject to mandatory cooperation with the CCP's intelligence services. This combination results in the use of WeChat and TikTok creating unacceptable risks to our national security. "
As of September 20, 2020, the following transactions are prohibited:
- Any service provision to distribute or maintain the WeChat or TikTok mobile applications, constituent code or application updates through an online mobile application store in the United States (in plain text, United States consumers no TikTok or WeChat will no longer be allowed to download from a US app store as of Sunday);
- Any provision of services through the WeChat mobile application for the purpose of transferring funds or processing payments in the United States.
Starting September 20, 2020, for WeChat and November 12, 2020, for TikTok, The following transactions are prohibited:
- Any provision of Internet hosting services that allows the operation or optimization of the mobile application in the United States;
- Any provision of content delivery network services that enables the operation or optimization of the mobile application in the United States;
- Any provision organized or contracted directly from Internet peering or transit services that allow the function or optimization of the mobile application in the United States;
- Any use of the code, functions or services constituting the mobile application in the operation of software or services developed and / or accessible in the United States.