US’s Reported TikTok Security Agreement Is a ‘Bad Deal’: Rubio

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference at The Rosen Shingle Creek in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 25, 2022. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) criticized a reported preliminary agreement between the Biden administration and TikTok that would avoid major changes to the popular video-sharing app’s Chinese ownership.

“Any ‘agreement’ with TikTok absent full divestment from ByteDance and the Chinese Communist Party is a bad deal—both for U.S. national security and for the millions of Americans whose private data will remain accessible to Beijing, per Chinese law,” Rubio told The Epoch Times in an email.

TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is based in Beijing. U.S. lawmakers have expressed concern that American users’ data can be accessed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), given that the regime’s laws compel companies to cooperate with security agencies when asked.

The Biden administration and TikTok have drafted a preliminary agreement to resolve national security concerns but are still finalizing the terms, media outlets recently reported, citing unnamed officials.

The deal, if completed, could allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States without requiring the platform to cut ties with ByteDance, a New York Times report said. TikTok would reportedly make changes to data security and governance under the deal.

However, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and other departments on the U.S. side of the negotiations have concerns about the potential deal, the NY Times reported. According to the report, the Treasury Department is skeptical about whether the potential agreement could solve national security concerns, while the DOJ’s top official is concerned that the terms aren’t tough enough on the Chinese regime.

“President Biden’s own bureaucrats at the Justice and Treasury Departments are worried that their alleged preliminary agreement won’t solve these critical problems,” Rubio said. “Why is he so intent on striking a deal in the first place?”

People walk past the headquarters of ByteDance, the parent company of video sharing app TikTok, in Beijing on Sept. 16, 2020. Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images

Data Security Concerns

The short-form video app, which has grown hugely popular among young people in the United States and elsewhere, has attracted heightened scrutiny by U.S. officials because of its Chinese ties.

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Officials and experts say the personal information of millions of Americans collected by the app could be used by the CCP to conduct espionage operations, or even shape their perceptions to be favorable to the Chinese regime.

TikTok has repeatedly denied such allegations, saying that U.S. users’ data is stored outside of China, and the company has never, and will never, hand any data to the CCP.

However, such concerns were renewed after leaked recordings of 80 internal company meetings obtained by BuzzFeed News purportedly show that engineers in China had access to the app’s U.S. data from at least September 2021 to January. Additionally, TikTok employees at times had to turn to their colleagues in China to determine the flow of U.S. data, which U.S. staff wasn’t authorized to independently access, the report said.

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“TikTok is just another invasive tool for communist China to infiltrate Americans’ personal and proprietary information,” Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) previously told The Epoch Times. “This app presents a very real threat to our national security, and the United States should take strong action to stop the CCP’s espionage campaign.”

While the Trump administration sought to ban TikTok and another Chinese social media app, WeChat, citing data security risks, the order was stalled by several lawsuits and court orders. In June 2021, President Joe Biden revoked the executive order, instead directing the Commerce Department to evaluate the platform to determine whether it poses a national security risk.

Rubio, along with five other Republican senators, sought updates on the administration’s security review in a June letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

“The results of the security reviews ... have not been publicly released after one year,” the GOP senators wrote in the letter.

At a Senate hearing last month, TikTok Chief Operating Officer Vanessa Pappas declined to make a commitment that the app would cut off flows of American users’ data to China. Instead, Pappas said that TikTok’s final agreement with the U.S. government “will satisfy all national security concerns.”

Officials at TikTok, the Treasury Department, and the White House didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.