New York City’s public Wi-Fi network has nixed a controversial deal with Chinese-owned TikTok to bring the service to “every street corner” after a Post inquiry and as congressional scrutiny over the app rages.
The planned partnership between the tech firm Intersection and LinkNYC was designed to allow TikTok’s “Out of Phone” service — which expands its wildly popular cell video content to public displays everywhere from billboards to bars — to screens on city cell-phone poles and at its Wi-Fi kiosks.
But Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Ritichie Torres (D-Bronx) got wind of the plan and immediately demanded that Mayor Eric Adams scrap the deal, claiming it represented a national security threat, given the company’s ties to China.
Intersection then told The Post on Sunday that the TikTok deal has been iced after the outlet asked about it.
“While this relationship never involved the collection or sharing of any data, Intersection has already paused the TikTok content partnership and is in the process of ending it due to recent developments at the federal level,” an Intersection rep said.
That’s a stark departure from what Intersection said when it announced the TikTok partnership in February, with a company representative crowing in a statement, “Our collaboration with TikTok takes their initiative to every street corner of NYC.”
The free public LinkNYC Wi-Fi program is currently provided under a city franchise agreement with a consortium called CityBridge that includes Intersection and Boldyn Networks.
After Intersection and TikTok inked their deal, Gottheimer and Torres learned of it — and cried foul to the city.
“We write to urge you to end the partnership between TikTok, LinkNYC, and Intersection,” the pols told the mayor in a draft letter obtained by The Post.
“This partnership presents a grave threat to national security by allowing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to harvest Americans’ data from the largest city in the United States,” they said.
Gottheimer and Torres pointed out the House voted 352-65 last month to give TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, about six months to divest the US assets of the short-video app or face a ban. The Senate is considering similar legislation, although the move faces opposition from TikTok and many of its users.
New York City is the financial capital of the world and home to “troves of sensitive data and information” and 9 million residents, while China’s CCP is “willing to use cyberwarfare and surveillance tactics to breach U.S. institutions,” the House members told the mayor.
“This privacy disaster cannot continue: TikTok and the CCP cannot have any additional avenues to access Americans’ data,” Gottheimer and Torres said. “Although Congress has taken steps to mitigate these national security threats, New York City’s partnership remains a threat to national security and should be terminated immediately.”
The Federal Trade Commission in 2019 fined TikTok for knowingly collecting the names, email addresses, pictures and locations of children under the age of 13 without parental consent, the lawmakers said.
The social-media app in 2022 also agreed to a class-action settlement for harvesting US personal data from users without their consent and confirmed that China-based employees could gain remote access to Americans’ data, including public videos and comments, the Congress members told the mayor.
“Using TikTok, China has the ability to control what a generation of kids sees and consumes every single day,” the House reps said.
“We urge New York City to immediately reevaluate this contract with LinkNYC if it continues its
partnership with TikTok.”
The city Office of Technology and Innovation, responding to The Post for the Adams administration, washed its hands of the controversy Sunday, claiming it was not directly involved in the deal.
“The City of New York recognizes the public health hazard and cybersecurity threat posed by TikTok and has undertaken significant legal and policy actions against both,” an OTI spokesman said.
In August, Adams’ cyber command unit banned TikTok from all government devices and ordered all city employees to delete the app from their work phones within 30 days out of fear of Chinese espionage.
“This administration does not have an advertising partnership with TikTok,” the OTI rep said. “As franchisee of the LinkNYC program, CityBridge is restricted from collecting personally identifiable information and from sharing that data with third parties. Advertising content appearing on any LinkNYC kiosk is not necessarily an endorsement by the City of New York.”