Lawmakers are urging Navy Exchange officials to stop selling Lenovo computers and other products, because of their reported links to the People’s Republic of China government.

“The exchange should not be selling Lenovo products to U.S. service members, let alone incentivizing such purchases with tax-free, discounted prices,” stated lawmakers on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, in a letter to Navy Exchange Service Command CEO Robert Bianchi, dated Oct. 4.

They asked for a briefing to the Select Committee no later than Oct. 20, to explain why the Navy Exchange decided to sell these items. “Lenovo is closely affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the [People’s Republic of China] government,” stated the letter, signed by Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisconsin.

The People’s Republic of China espionage campaigns “are highly sophisticated and could certainly target U.S. service members on their personal computer and IT devices,” the lawmakers wrote.

All eligible shoppers can buy from the Navy Exchange, regardless of branch of service. Neither Marine Corps exchanges or Army and Air Force exchanges have carried Lenovo products since 2019, according to spokespersons for those exchange services.

A quick check of the Navy Exchange website shows nine Lenovo laptops and one desktop computer for sale. Information was not immediately available from Navy Exchange officials on the number of products sold in stores, or the volume of sales. A response to the lawmakers’ concerns was not available by publication time.

In a statement provided to Military Times, officials from Lenovo, a company with headquarters in Beijing and Morrisville, North Carolina, denied those connections with China.

“The assertions regarding Lenovo cited in Chairman Gallagher’s letter are based on past claims that were inaccurate, unsubstantiated or resolved years ago,” officials stated. “Lenovo is not affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army in any way, is not invested in or controlled by the Chinese government or the Chinese Communist Party, and does not participate in or have links to Chinese state-run cyberespionage campaigns.”

In his committee letter, Gallagher quotes a 2018 report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, stating, “[Lenovo’s] links to state-run cyberespionage campaigns are well documented, and it is believed to have been complicit in installing Superfish spyware and potentially a BIOS backdoor on a number of its computer products.” BIOS is a basic input/output system.

According to that report, “the Chinese government, through Legend Holdings Limited, is the largest shareholder of Lenovo stock.” However, the company points to a Fitch Ratings report, which states that Legend Holdings has a 36% share and holds two of 12 board seats, and that Lenovo is independent of Legend. Lenovo’s leadership team includes several Americans.

“We are concerned that these actors could gain access to service members’ sensitive personal information and exploit this access to compromise U.S. national security,” Gallagher wrote.

Gallagher cited a number of sources of concern, including a 2018 Federal Trade Commission complaint against Lenovo for preinstalling software that “created serious security vulnerabilities.” As part of a 2018 settlement with the FTC, Lenovo has been prohibited from misrepresenting any software features that are preloaded on laptops that will inject advertising into consumers’ internet browsing or transmit sensitive consumer information to third parties. In addition, Lenovo was required for 20 years to implement a software security program for most consumer software preloaded on its laptops.

Lenovo officials responded that since 2005, when it bought IBM’s PC division, the company has successfully completed five national security reviews by the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and has fully complied with post-review audits and oversight requirements.

“We have been a trusted vendor to multiple U.S. government agencies over many years, and our products deliver excellent value, performance and reliability,” company officials said.

The Defense Department spent at least $32.8 million in fiscal 2018 on technology that could threaten national security, according to a 2019 DoD Inspector General report. Among those cited were 1,573 Lenovo products totaling over $2 million. Congress and the Department of Homeland Security issued multiple warnings against using Lenovo computers, according to the report. The IG investigators noted that these had “known cybersecurity vulnerabilities in FY 2018.”

Meanwhile, House lawmakers have approved a provision in the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization legislation that would ban the sale of all goods in commissaries and exchanges that are made in China, assembled in China, or imported into the United States from China. The Senate’s version doesn’t have a similar provision; House and Senate lawmakers are hashing out their differences.

While the military services have banned the use of TikTok from government devices, troops and family members do use the app on personal devices.

TikTok is owned by the Beijing-based ByteDance, said Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission. And he’s concerned about the amount of non-public sensitive data Americans upload that could be flowing into the hands of the Chinese government.

TikTok has grown in popularity in the military community. For example, troops often upload videos of barracks, military equipment and maneuvers, Carr said in testimony Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee’s panel on national security.

“With TikTok, this is a device right in your pocket. It’s going inside the military installation, looking at location data, which can give people information on troop movements,” Carr said. “There’s a range of ways that that sensitive data going back to Beijing with their sophisticated [artificial intelligence] can ultimately be used to harm U.S. national security.”

The hearing was held to explore financial fraud targeting service members and veterans. The threats to active duty and veterans come from a variety of sources, according to Carr, and many of the frauds seen on other online platforms are also perpetrated on TikTok. But there are unique national security concerns when it comes to this video-sharing app.

“TikTok has engaged in a pattern of misrepresentation regarding both the amount and extent of data it’s collected as well as how much has been accessed from inside China,” Carr said.

He cited a recent BuzzFeed News report of leaked audio from 80 internal TikTok meetings that showed China has repeatedly accessed Americans’ user data.

“The flow of this non-public sensitive data into China is particularly troubling given the [People’s Republic of China’s] track record of engaging in espionage and other nefarious acts,” Carr said.

“At its core, TikTok functions as a sophisticated surveillance tool that harvests extensive amounts of sensitive data from search and browsing history, keystroke patterns, location data, and biometrics including face prints and voice prints,” Carr added. “All of the concerns with TikTok are heightened in the military context.”

Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wisc., proposed that the military should be proactively urging troops to not use the app.

“Should the military be doing more to tell our members to stay off of TikTok?” he asked.

The federal government should be doing more, Carr said. The government “should address the continued use of TikTok on military installations, as well as any use that depicts U.S. military operations,” he added.

Ongoing national security reviews of TikTok, currently being conducted by officials in the Treasure and Commerce departments, should be finished soon, according to Carr.

Leaders of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, chairman Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and vice chairman Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fl., called on the Federal Trade Commission in a July 5 letter to initiate an investigation of TikTok.

In light of reports about the Chinese government’s access to the data, they wrote, the FTC should immediately launch an investigation “on the basis of apparent deception by TikTok, and coordinate this work with any national security or counter-intelligence investigation that may be initiated by the U.S. Department of Justice.”

Carr has also called on Google and Apple to remove TikTok from their app stores. In a July 5 blog, a TikTok official addressed the company’s approach to keeping U.S. data secure.

“The security of the data our community entrusts us with is a top priority at TikTok, despite recent reports questioning that commitment,” wrote Michael Beckerman, TikTok’s head of public policy for the Americas.

TikTok recently stood up a new U.S. data security division “to bring heightened focus and governance to our ongoing efforts to strengthen our data protection policies and protocols, further protect our users, and build confidence in our systems and controls in the United States,” he stated.

The creation of that division was an important milestone in the goals they previously laid out, he said: “minimizing access to U.S. user data and minimizing data transfers across regions – including to China.”