U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI 7th Dist.) said that banning TikTok from government devices is a good start, but he believes there is more work to do to protect Americans' data and privacy from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
In December, Tiffany signed a letter urging Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers to ban TikTok from state-issued devices, and the governor has since issued a ban by executive order, a report from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said.
“The clock is ticking for TikTok in the United States,” Tiffany said in a statement provided to the State Newswire. “While we have made great strides banning them on federal devices and in more than half of the states on state-owned devices, TikTok’s undeniable ties to Communist China continue to pose a clear threat to our national security, and more must be done to prevent sensitive American government and personal data from falling into the hands of the CCP.”
Tiffany, along with U.S. Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-WI 8th Dist.), Glenn Grothman (R-WI 6th Dist.), Bryan Steil (R-WI 1st Dist.) and Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI 5th Dist.), and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), sent a letter calling on Evers to ban TikTok from state-issued devices, citing concerns that the CCP can use the app to spy on Americans and promote propaganda, the Journal-Sentinel reported.
Earlier this month, Evers issued an executive order banning the China-based video-sharing app from state government devices, Spectrum News 1 reported.
Steve Noll, a marketing instructor with a specialization in social media at Madison College, told Spectrum News 1 that it was clear a funding source outside of advertising was propping up TikTok. Investigations revealed ties back to the Chinese government. Noll also said they did not know for sure that the Chinese government could access data from users’ entire phones, not just data from TikTok apps.
Catherine L. Szpindor, the House of Representatives’ chief administrative officer, notified staff that her office’s cybersecurity unit had determined that TikTok posed a “high risk to users due to a number of security risks” and therefore must be deleted from mobile phones, NBC said in December.
“House staff are NOT allowed to download the TikTok app on any House mobile devices,” Szpindor’s memo stated, quoted in the NBC report.
TikTok stated in a December statement that it is working to “meaningfully address any security concerns that have been raised at both the federal and state level,” the NBC report said. The plans reportedly have been developed under the oversight of the nation’s top national security agencies.
In early December, FBI Director Christopher Wray told an audience at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy that the FBI believes China can use TikTok—which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance—to collect users’ data as well as manipulate the app's algorithm, AP News reported. This enables them to manipulate content and use it to influence operations.
Vanessa Pappas, TikTok’s chief operating officer, said in a September Senate hearing that the Chinese government cannot access American users' data, the AP report said.
“We will never share data, period,” she said.
Tiffany has represented Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District since 2020, his website said. He previously served in the Wisconsin State Assembly and State Senate, representing the 12th District.
