“India’s early and thoughtful approach to insecure Chinese apps set a standard that the rest of the world should now follow—and fast,” Carr said. “Apps that are ultimately beholden to the Communist Party of China have a proven track record of surreptitious data collections and accessing more data than necessary for the app to function. None of that can be separated from the broader security threats posed by those apps.” The FCC is an independent US government agency and the primary authority for communications law and regulation.
India banned Tiktok and 50-plus other Chinese apps in June 2020. This was followed by a ban on several other Chinese apps in the following months. In all, the country has banned over 100 Chinese apps.
Demand for ban on CapCut app
TikTok is banned on government devices in almost all US states. Now ByteDance‘s another app has come under scanner in the US. It is the video editing app CapCut. Some users have filed a class-action lawsuit in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois accusing it of illegally profiting from sensitive personal data. The lawsuit alleges that CapCut and its parent company ByteDance, which also owns TikTok, illegally harvest and profit from user data including biometric information and geolocation.
Incidentally, India finds a mention in the complaint as well. It said that users are further at risk because ByteDance’s conduct exposes CapCut users’ data to access by the Chinese government. “As a result of such concerns, CapCut has been banned in India along with other China-based video- editing apps,” the complaint claims.