Five senators are set to introduce a bipartisan bill that would require licensing requirements for exports of Americans' private data to address national security concerns surrounding TikTok without implementing a full ban on the app. The proposed legislation would restrict the transfer of personal information only to places deemed "untrustworthy" by the Commerce Department, and transfers to "trustworthy" places and internet users' own transfers of personal data would not be regulated. The legislation would apply to thousands of companies that routinely transfer data to other jurisdictions, like data brokers and other social media companies. The proposed legislation, titled the Protecting Americans' Data From Foreign Surveillance Act, comes at a time when TikTok has faced criticism after reports indicated the app could track user keystrokes and that TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, planned to spy on American citizens using TikTok. The U.S. has considered banning the popular video-sharing app over concerns that its Chinese ownership poses a threat to national security. Though a nationwide ban has not yet been implemented, a majority of states-and Congress-have banned the use of the app on government devices out of security concerns. Montana recently became the first state to pass a total ban on TikTok, though the social media company quickly filed a lawsuit, alleging the ban "unlawfully abridges one of the core freedoms" allowed under the First Amendment by suppressing free speech. It's unclear if the law would punish individual users of the app, but it would prohibit downloads of the app within the state by fining any "entity"-like the Google Play Store or Apple's App Store-$10,000 per day each time someone accesses it, "is offered the ability" to access it, or downloads it.
New bill aims to limit TikTok's access to U.S. data
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