Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has proposed a bipartisan bill that would prohibit TikTok from operating in the U.S., citing the social media platform’s threat to national security.

Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., unveiled companion legislation in the lower chamber, backing Rubio’s measure – Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act or ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act.

“The federal government has yet to take a single meaningful action to protect American users from the threat of TikTok. This isn’t about creative videos — this is about an app that is collecting data on tens of millions of American children and adults every day,” said Rubio.

The lawmaker also cited how TikTok can influence elections and the platform’s ties to China.

In November, FBI Director Christopher Wray told a House panel about the bureau’s national security concerns over TikTok, saying the Chinese government could potentially exploit the video app to control data collection on millions of users.

Brendan Carr, a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, called on the Council on Foreign Investment in the United States to initiate action to ban TikTok due to concerns over the security of data of U.S. users.

The Department of the Treasury’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. is conducting a review of TikTok over national security issues as the app owned by Chinese company ByteDance negotiates to continue its operations in the U.S.

In September, a Senate panel held a hearing over the video platform’s access to U.S. user data and links to the Chinese government.

The office of the undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment at the Department of Defense has released a memorandum announcing the integration of the Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System with the System for Award Management as part of the ongoing modernization of the Integrated Award Environment.

The General Services Administration’s Federal Acquisition Service oversees IAE, which unifies and manages the federal awards process for the government acquisition workforce and business partners and seeks to modernize the award experience through the use of innovative platforms.

The integrity records will be part of SAM’s entity information domain and will be renamed Responsibility/Qualification upon completion of the integration as part of efforts to provide users with a single point to access information on R/Q, exclusions and entity management, according to the memo.

“Users can download a report from SAM showing the entity’s basic identification information as well as the entity’s R/Q information. Additionally, R/Q and proceedings data is available via a new Entity Management application program interface (API) at https://open.gsa.gov/api/entity-api/,” the memo reads.

According to the document, government employees will continue to encode non-responsibility determination and other required data into FAPIIS through the input module the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System.

John Tenaglia, principal director of defense pricing and contracting, signed the memo Tuesday.

Cross-sector working group Enduring Security Framework — which includes representatives from the National Security Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — has issued its evaluation of possible threats with 5G network slicing for the creation of best practices to implement in order to maintain network security. 

The report, which pinpoints management strategies to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of each network slice, was calculated for mobile service providers, hardware manufacturers, software developers and system integrators working on the deployment of 5G networks, NSA said Tuesday. 

ESF intends the assessment to serve as a base to craft a methodology to design, deploy, operate, and maintain secure network slicing across private, hybrid, and public networks.

“The Department of Defense is transitioning 5G into its enterprise. Being able to do network slicing across the entire 5G system is a critical new capability that 5G provides over [Long Term Evolution],” shared Andrew Thiessen, chief economist at the Defense Department’s 5G cross-functional team. 

Bonnie Evangelista, Tradewind execution lead within the Department of Defense’s chief digital and artificial intelligence office, said DOD needs to change its culture to accelerate the acquisition of military technologies and capabilities and Tradewind is one of the initiatives that could help drive that cultural change within the department.

She wrote in a commentary published Monday on Defense News that Tradewind is an “attempt to clear a way out of the bureaucratic contracting labyrinth” and “a movement to take intentional action that drives not only the procurement and acquisition of leading-edge technology, but also the cultural change the DoD so desperately needs.”

According to Evangelista, Tradewind comes with a set of services and tools designed to speed up the acquisition and adoption of new technologies and one of those tools is the Tradewind Solutions Marketplace.

She said the marketplace allows industry innovators to quickly bring their technology platforms to government purchasers by submitting a short video of their platform explaining its potential use in addressing DOD’s problem sets.

“For government, this means a searchable inventory of potential technology solutions that have met competition standards for Federal Acquisition Regulation and non-FAR based contracting methodologies,” Evangelista noted. “No more time spent in source selections and downselects — just find a solution and buy it.”

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration is soliciting public insights and feedback to inform the development and implementation of a grant program to support the deployment of standards-based, interoperable and open radio access networks.

The CHIPS and Science Act signed into law in August appropriates $1.5 billion for the Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund to advance the development of open, interoperable, standards-based RAN, according to a request for comment published Tuesday.

The fund will back the deployment of software, hardware, microprocessing systems and other technologies to improve competitiveness in 5G and wireless technology supply chains, accelerate commercial release of standards-based, interoperable and open interface equipment, manage the integration of multivendor network environments and field security features that enhance the integrity of equipment in multivendor networks, among other activities.

NTIA is asking interested stakeholders to offer practical solutions to challenges with regard to the adoption of open, interoperable, standards-based RAN, recommend potential projects the Innovation Fund should support and suggest the criteria that could be used in awarding grants through the fund.

The agency is requesting responses to specific questions related to the current state of the telecommunications industry; technology development and standards; integration, interoperability and certification; trials, pilots, use cases and market development; program execution and monitoring; and security.

Comments are due Jan. 27.