Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday allegedly said that TikTok app is illegally collecting data which is then being received by China and termed it as an issue of national security.
Tharoor, speaking during the Zero Hour in the Lok Sabha said, “It is a matter of national security. He said that he would like to draw the attention of the House to India’s vulnerability to data leakage and surveillance.” He further added, “There is an absence of a robust comprehensive data protection framework in the country.”
He further alleged that the Chinese government is receiving all the data from TikTok through the wholly state-owned China Telecom. “Recently, the federal regulators in the US slapped a fine of 5.7 million dollars on the social media app TikTok for illegally collecting data on children,” he said.
However, according to TikTok, it “does not operate in the People’s Republic of China and their government has no access to TikTok users’ data, nor does it have any existing partnership with China Telecom.”
“Our Indian users’ data is stored in the US and Singapore at industry-leading third-party data centres,” it added.
Describing it as a “national security issue”, Tharoor said he would urge the government to introduce a comprehensive legal framework in order to protect the fundamental right to privacy thus saving democracy of the country.