FBI Director Christopher Wray said the bureau has grave national security concerns about Chinese-owned video app TikTok and is passing its input on to regulators who are weighing a deal that would allow it to keep operating in the US.

Wray told lawmakers China’s government could use the app to control millions of users’ data or software, and its recommendation algorithm - which determines which videos users will see next - “could be used for influence operations if they so choose”.

“Under Chinese law, Chinese companies are required to essentially - and I’m going to shorthand here - basically do whatever the Chinese government wants them to do in terms of sharing information or serving as a tool of the Chinese government,” Wray told the House Homeland Security Committee. “That’s plenty of reason by itself to be extremely concerned.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has passed along its concerns to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the government body that’s reviewing the deal.

The Biden administration is weighing a proposal to allow TikTok to continue to operate in the US under the ownership of Chinese parent ByteDance Ltd. The arrangement would include routing US user traffic through servers maintained by Oracle Corp, with the US-based database giant auditing the app’s algorithms.

Two influential Republican lawmakers wrote in a Washington Post column last week that TikTok should be banned outright in the US. Florida Senator Marco Rubio, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin said they planned to introduce legislation to ban the platform along with others “that are effectively controlled by the CCP.”

Wray offered to give lawmakers a classified briefing about the FBI’s concerns about the platform and the potential deal. He said the bureau’s foreign investment unit is providing input on the potential deal through the Cfius process and that he expects its concerns will be taken into account in any agreement.

The Justice Department, which oversees counter-intelligence operations in the US, has long harbored concerns about the app. The department’s No 2 official, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, has expressed concerns in private that the agreement designed by the Biden administration doesnt go far enough to keep the data of US users safe from Chinese actors, Bloomberg has reported.

Wray said the FBI is concerned about the threat specifically from the Chinese government, saying its laws are used as “an aggressive weapon” against US and Chinese companies “to do whatever the Chinese government wants them to do”.

A spokesperson for TikTok didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

 - Bloomberg