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Walberg Demands Answers on Tutor.com's Ties to the CCP

April 12, 2024

Washington, D.C. -- Today, U.S. Representative Tim Walberg (MI-05) led twelve of his colleagues in sending a letter to Secretary Cardona demanding answers on the national security and child privacy concerns raised about Tutor.com, an online tutoring platform used in school districts all across the country, including a contract with the Department of Defense to provide free services to United States military servicemembers and their families.

“Tutor.com collects sensitive data on its users and tutors, including names, locations, IP addresses, and recordings of the tutoring sessions. According to the National Intelligence Law of the People’s Republic of China, any entity based in China is obligated to share information with Beijing if asked to do so. The law is applicable extraterritorially, meaning subsidiary companies operating outside of China are under the same obligation. This poses a significant national security threat,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter.

Tutor.com is owned by Primavera Capital Group, a Chinese firm with ties to ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok.

"An independent review by our partner organization, Parents Defending Education, found that K-12 schools in at least 25 states have contracts with tutor.com - a company now headquartered in China. This poses a significant security threat to school databases and critical infrastructure, including the potential of compromising sensitive teacher and student information. We should not allow a geopolitical adversary to gain access to our schools. PDE Action applauds Rep. Walberg in his efforts to call on the Department of Education to take immediate action against this threat," said Nicki Neily, Executive Director of Parents Defending Education Action.

The full text of the letter can be downloaded HERE.

Issues:Education