TikTok Data Collection Is National Security Threat, DOJ Says

(Bloomberg) — The US Justice Department said TikTok collected user information on sensitive topics, making it a national security threat that justifies a law to ban the popular social-media app in the US if its China-based parent company ByteDance Ltd. doesn’t divest.

Most Read from Bloomberg

The popular social media app could be compelled to share the user information with China, which could also censor or influence content seen by Americans, the Justice Department said in court filings late Friday.

TikTok “collects vast swaths of sensitive data from its 170 million users,” the Justice Department wrote in the filing. “That collection includes data on users’ precise locations, viewing habits, and private messages.”

The filing in the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit was the Justice Department’s first response to legal challenges brought by TikTok and the company’s content creators after President Joseph Biden signed a provision into law that would ban the app if ByteDance doesn’t sell it by Jan. 19.

After US lawmakers moved quickly to pass the law earlier this year following classified briefings about security risks, TikTok has fought back by deploying lawyers, lobbyists and content creators. They argue a ban infringes on free speech and will put American jobs at risk.

TikTok said that it remains confident in its case.

“Nothing in this brief changes the fact that the Constitution is on our side,” the company said in a statement on X responding to the DOJ filing. “The TikTok ban would silence 170 million Americans’ voices, violating the First Amendment. As we’ve said before, the government has never put forth proof of its claims, including when Congress passed this unconstitutional law.”

The company has said in the past that Chinese officials cannot access US user data and defended its data-collection practices. The app has more than 170 million monthly users in the US.

In its brief, the DOJ defended the bill’s constitutionality, arguing that collection of data and manipulation of algorithms by a foreign power wasn’t protected under free speech protections for a global audience. The brief also dismissed narrower proposals by TikTok, arguing they would fail to address the national security concerns raised.

TikTok has tried to assuage concerns by working with Oracle Corp. to protect user information. But that didn’t sway lawmakers. TikTok’s algorithm, source code and back-end support are in China, according to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who supported a divestment.

The US government said the goal of the legislation was to protect Americans, not silence them.

The law “reflects Congress’s and the President’s considered judgments that nothing short of severing the ties between TikTok and China could suffice to mitigate the national-security threats posed by the application,” the US government wrote in the filing.

TikTok and the content creators have until Aug. 15 to respond, and oral arguments are expected in September. The DC Circuit panel has set an expedited schedule after TikTok requested that the case be decided by Dec. 6 to leave enough time to appeal to the US Supreme Court, if necessary.

The case is TikTok v. Garland, 24-1113, US Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

(Updates with more details from filing from second paragraph.)