TikTok Data Concerns: Incoming House Committee Chairs Accuses Company of Lying to Congress

Two senior Republican lawmakers are accusing TikTok of making potentially false statements to Congress about its reported plans to monitor the locations of specific American users, National Review has learned. If, as expected, the two lawmakers become the chairs of their respective committees in January, they will have enhanced powers to investigate TikTok and its Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, over their ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

In a letter addressed today to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew and obtained by NR, Representatives James Comer (the presumptive next chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (the presumptive next chairwoman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee) asked that the company preserve documents and electronic records pertaining to certain sensitive practices allegedly undertaken by TikTok and ByteDance. Following a recent report that TikTok planned to track specific U.S. users’ locations, the lawmakers are accusing the company of lying. “The social-media company is either misleading or providing false information to Congress about its data-sharing and privacy practices,” Comer told NR. “Under no circumstances should Americans’ private data be in the hands of the CCP.”

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Jimmy Quinn

Jimmy Quinn is the former national security correspondent for National Review.

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Two senior Republican lawmakers are accusing TikTok of making potentially false statements to Congress about its reported plans to monitor the locations of specific American users, National Review has learned. If, as expected, the two lawmakers become the chairs of their respective committees in January, they will have enhanced powers to investigate TikTok and its Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, over their ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

In a letter addressed today to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew and obtained by NR, Representatives James Comer (the presumptive next chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (the presumptive next chairwoman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee) asked that the company preserve documents and electronic records pertaining to certain sensitive practices allegedly undertaken by TikTok and ByteDance. Following a recent report that TikTok planned to track specific U.S. users’ locations, the lawmakers are accusing the company of lying. “The social-media company is either misleading or providing false information to Congress about its data-sharing and privacy practices,” Comer told NR. “Under no circumstances should Americans’ private data be in the hands of the CCP.”