US senators urge Justice Department to investigate Zoom and TikTok’s ties to Beijing

Two US senators appealed to the Justice Department to investigate both the video conferencing tool Zoom and the social media platform TikTok for allegedly disclosing private information about their users to the Chinese government.

In a letter to Assistant Attorney General John Demers, Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, and Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, accused the two popular online apps of “hiding vulnerable ties and dependencies on China”.

“We are extremely concerned that Zoom and TikTok have disclosed private information about Americans to the [People’s Republic of China] and engaged in censorship on behalf of the Chinese government,” said Blumenthal and Hawley, both vocal supporters of legislation aimed at countering Beijing.

“As tens of millions of Americans turn to Zoom and TikTok during the Covid-19 pandemic, few know that the privacy of their data and their freedom of expression is under threat due to the relationship of these companies to the Chinese government,” the letter said.

“Zoom and TikTok have sought to conceal and distract from their meaningful ties to China, holding themselves out as American companies,” the letter added. “This concealment is alarming – Chinese tech firms are notoriously bound to draconian intelligence laws, media regulations and extrajudicial pressure that compels them to censor and spy for China’s state security services.”

Representatives from both companies denied any sharing of data with Chinese authorities.