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State Government Websites May Have Embedded TikTok Trackers

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Despite its rising popularity — as RedState’s Ben Kew reported, the site boasts more than 150 million monthly users — a number of state and governmental entities have moved recently to ban TikTok’s use on government devices, if not pushed for an outright ban of the app.

Last November, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr called for the U.S. to ban TikTok on national security grounds.

Published by Axios on Tuesday, the new interview with Brendan Carr features “the strongest language Carr has used to date to urge action on TikTok.”

The Council on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) should take action to ban TikTok, Brendan Carr, one of five commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission, told Axios in an interview.

…

“I don’t believe there is a path forward for anything other than a ban,” Carr said, citing recent revelations about how TikTok and ByteDance handle U.S. user data.

In December, Louisiana’s Secretary of State, Kyle Ardoin, banned the app from devices issued by his department and asked Governor John Bel Edwards to do the same across all state agencies. As Joe Cunningham noted at the time:

Ardoin isn’t the only official to make the move. In other states – like North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Maryland, Texas, Utah, and Virginia – governors have made similar decisions. Legislation to ban federal government devices from having access has also made recent headlines.

In Missouri, Rep. Adam Schnelting (R-St. Charles County) introduced similar legislation in February:

“The Chinese Communist Party is spying on Americans and we shouldn’t put up with it,” Rep. Adam Schnelting, (R)-St. Charles County, said.

Rep. Schnelting proposed one solution for that, House Bill 919, to ban any app that is owned by or shares data with China from state-owned devices like laptops and cell phones.

“We’ve got over 60,000 employees in the state of Missouri or roughly, I should say. Government devices span from law enforcement, military and so on down the line. I make exceptions in the legislation for law enforcement and military so that if they need to for their research purposes or for their task, their duties, they can utilize it,” Schnelting said.

But a new review conducted by Toronto-based Feroot Security reveals that over two-dozen state government websites have tracking code created by ByteDance Ltd., the parent company of TikTok.

More than two dozen state governments have placed web-tracking code made by TikTok parent ByteDance Ltd. on official websites, according to a new report from a cybersecurity company, illustrating the difficulties U.S. regulators face in curtailing data-collection efforts by the popular Chinese-owned app.

A review of the websites of more than 3,500 companies, organizations and government entities by the Toronto-based company Feroot Security found that so-called tracking pixels from the TikTok parent company were present in 30 U.S. state-government websites across 27 states, including some where the app has been banned from state networks and devices. Feroot collected the data in January and February of this year.

How is that possible — particularly in states that have banned the app — and what is the significance of it? The tracking pixels are placed intentionally to assist website administrators in determining how effective ads purchased on TikTok are in terms of prompting users to visit a particular website or subscribe to an advertised service. So, even if these state entities have prohibited the app on their devices, they’re still leaving themselves vulnerable to data collection from a Chinese-owned company.

TikToks pixels “can be watching and recording you when you’re renewing your driver’s license, paying your taxes or filling out doctors’ forms,” said Ivan Tsarynny, chief executive of Feroot, adding that they should be removed from websites of government agencies and companies that collect personal information.

TikTok maintains that they “instruct advertisers not to share certain data with us, and we continuously work with our partners to avoid inadvertent transmission of such data.”

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is slated to testify before House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday morning, in a hearing titled, “TikTok: How Congress Can Safeguard American Data Privacy and Protect Children from Online Harms.”

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WATCH: Chinese Nationals Encountered by Fox News Crew at Southern Border

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We’ve been covering the ongoing crisis at the southern border extensively at RedState. A sampling of that coverage from just the past week:

Chaos at the Border: Massive Crowd of at Least 1000 Storms Port of Entry Near El Paso

Despite the Del Norte Bridge Illegal Surge, DHS Committee Democrats Refuse to Attend Border Field Hearing

As DHS Head Mayorkas Continues to Lie, Biden Continues to Do Zero to Secure Southern Border

Skyrocketing Number of Deaths Shows Human Cost of Biden’s Border Policies—’It’s Like a Graveyard’

Meanwhile, the Biden administration appears intent to turn a blind eye to the chaos and destruction spurred on by their lax policies. As Bob Hoge so aptly put it:

The only conclusion one can make from Biden’s absolute refusal to deal with the border—along with his surrogate “border czar” Kamala Harris—is that this is what they want.

Neither has found the time to even visit the Rio Grande, much less take effective action to stem the flow of illegals. There are costs here—and the costs are the corpses of the unfortunate souls who embarked on a perilous journey feeling they had an express invitation from the Biden administration—which in effect, they did.

I always find it histrionic when writers write that a politician has “blood on his hands,” but in this case, there is a tragic rise in dead people, and that rise can be directly laid at the feet of Biden and his border policies.

In addition to the very real human costs outlined above, there remains the looming threat to national security as well. A February hearing before the House Oversight Committee confirmed that nearly 100 individuals on the FBI’s terror watch list were apprehended at the border in Fiscal Year 2022. Moreover, we know that illegal immigrants from over 160 countries have been encountered at the border.

China would be one of those countries, as noted by Fox News correspondent Griff Jenkins in this Sunday morning tweet regarding an encounter with Chinese nationals on Saturday:

What’s interesting about the group (in addition to their country of origin being more than 7,000 miles distant) is their attire and lack of baggage/equipment. They look like they’re simply out for a leisurely Saturday stroll. One is forced to wonder: Where did they come from? And, more importantly, why?

In the video, though their English is limited, they acknowledge they are from China. And they are far from alone. As noted by Customs and Border Protection Chief Gloria Chavez (one of the witnesses who testified at the aforementioned Oversight hearing) notes that in Fiscal Year 2023 alone, there have been 1,577 apprehensions of Chinese immigrants — and that’s just in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) sector.

CBP data backs up the fact that record numbers of Chinese nationals have been entering the U.S. illegally since Joe Biden took office.

The number of Chinese nationals illegally entering the U.S. has significantly increased under the Biden administration, beginning around the 2020 election, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

Nationwide, 18,395 Chinese nationals were apprehended in fiscal 2020; 23,471 in fiscal 2021; 27,756 in fiscal 2022; and 10,587 in the fiscal year to date.

The vast majority are single adults. In fiscal 2020, 18,014 apprehended were single adults; 23,172 were single adults in fiscal 2021; 26,447 were in fiscal 2022, and 9,772 were so far in fiscal year 2023.

The numbers have become so significant, that special measures have been implemented to address the added language barrier.

Chinese nationals make up such a significant number of gotaways that rescue beacons were established along the southern border and have instructions in Mandarin. Gotaways are those who intentionally seek to evade capture from law enforcement after illegally entering between ports of entry. At least 1.2 million gotaways have been reported since President Joe Biden’s been in office, a record, although that number is expected to be significantly higher because not all gotaways are recorded.

Rescue beacons positioned throughout the southern border help Border Patrol agents rescue foreign nationals attempting to make it through desert-like and remote areas. The structures are tall and white and look like antennas with a blue light at the top. About eye level is a red button and a sign with instructions in English, Spanish and Mandarin that reads: “If you need help push the red button. Help will arrive. Do not leave the area.”

The beacons also have instructions with a diagram to show people how to push the button. Once they push it a signal is sent to a nearby Border Patrol station so agents can come and rescue them. If the beacons weren’t there, those relying on them would likely die, law enforcement officers told The Center Square.

I suppose that’s one sort of “operational control,” Secretary Mayorkas. The question is: Whose?

The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.

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