- A bipartisan bill reintroduced this week would regulate how companies including TikTok share US data.
- The legislation could address some of the core security concerns about the app.
TikTok may have a path forward in the US without a sale or ban.
US lawmakers just put forth a bipartisan bill that would regulate how companies including TikTok share US data, and it could address some of the major security concerns surrounding the app.
The legislation, led by Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, and Sen. Cynthia Lummis, a Republican from Wyoming, would restrict foreign-owned companies from accessing US data from abroad or sending data to "unfriendly foreign nations," CNN first reported. It's an updated version of a bill that was previously introduced.
TikTok has faced increased scrutiny from US lawmakers around its ties to China, where its parent company, ByteDance, is based.
The Wall Street Journal reported in March that the Biden administration and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US had demanded TikTok's Chinese owners sell their stakes in its app in order for it to operate in the US. Congress members' March grilling of TikTok's CEO did little to quell concerns of lawmakers and Wall Street. And Montana became the first state to ban TikTok when its governor signed in May a bill that would block the app from operating within state lines starting next year, though it's since faced opposition from TikTok and freedom-of-speech advocates.
At the core of the issue are concerns that TikTok's Beijing-based parent company could be compelled to give the Chinese Community Party access to US user data. A lawsuit by a former ByteDance employee who left the company in 2018 has even alleged that ByteDance had a "backdoor channel" in its code that allowed member of the CCP to access user data hosted in the US.
The reintroduced legislation could help address those concerns by identifying "high-risk countries where exports of sensitive data will be blocked," issuing licenses for data exports to other some countries, and still sharing data freely with nations deemed "low risk."
The bill would also regulate all exports of personal data — not just those deemed "sensitive" based on national security concerns — by data brokers and other companies like TikTok to "restricted foreign" governments and parent companies in those regions, among other entities.
TikTok has also been trying to show it can safeguard US user data by walling it off in Oracle servers based in the US and deleting legacy data stored elsewhere. It's spent roughly two years and $1.5 billion so far on the initiative, dubbed Project Texas, though it is still far from complete.
The latest version of the bill doesn't name TikTok or ByteDance. But a Wyden aide told CNN the new language indirectly targets TikTok by barring data transfers from one company to a parent that may receive data requests by a restricted foreign government, when that company has data on more than one million users.
"Massive pools of Americans' sensitive information — everything from where we go, to what we buy and what kind of health care services we receive — are for sale to buyers in China, Russia, and nearly anyone with a credit card," Wyden said in the announcement. "Our bipartisan bill would turn off the tap of data to unfriendly nations, stop TikTok from sending Americans' personal information to China, and allow nations with strong privacy protections to strengthen their relationships."
The legislation is being co-sponsored by five other US senators on both sides of the aisle, and has been introduced in the House of Representatives.