And long before the rise of TikTok, China was already notorious on the global stage for stealing massive quantities of data about Americans and others from governments and companies around the world.

Huge quantities of sensitive data about people living in the US are already available in various forms for purchase or the taking through other public social media platforms, the digital marketing industry, data brokers, and leaked stolen data troves. But the reason TikTok has been singled out is less clear. With so many users, TikTok is clearly a potentially rich source of personal data and could be exploited in the way other social platforms have been to spread disinformation or promote influence operations. But for the general public, warnings from legislators and regulators this summer have continued to be vague and amorphous, underscoring broader ambiguity about where lawmakers' precise concerns lie. This followed a June 17 BuzzFeed News report, which found that ByteDance employees can and do gain access to US TikTok users' data in some situations. Just last month, the chief administrative officer for the US House of Representatives warned lawmakers against installing TikTok due to the data it can collect. The US military banned its members from using TikTok on government devices or at all in late 2019 and early 2020, as did the Transportation Security Administration and some other federal agencies.

Tik tok app