China

TikTok Releases ‘Transparency Report' Amid Scrutiny Over Chinese Ownership

The report was released this week amid calls for concern by some U.S. lawmakers about potential security risks from the Chinese-owned company

Shiho Fukada/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The short video app TikTok this week released its first "transparency report," which included the number of requests for user information it received from governments during the first half of 2019, NBC News reported.

India led in the number of those requests from Jan. 1 to June 30, with 107 — which specified a total of 143 accounts. The company produced some information on close to half of those requests. The United States came in second, with 79 total requests that specified 255 accounts. The company said 86 percent of those requests involved the production of some information.

"We take such requests extremely seriously, and closely review each request that we receive to determine whether, for example, the request adheres to the required legal process or the content violates a local law," Eric Ebenstein, TikTok's director of public policy, said in a statement Monday.

The app, owned by the China-based tech company ByteDance, came under greater scrutiny in October when Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., a member of the Armed Services and Intelligence committees, sent a letter asking Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, to assess TikTok and other China-based companies for potential security risks.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com.

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