TikTok Has Responded To US Lawmakers To Confirm BuzzFeed News’ Report That US Users’ Data Was Accessed From China

TikTok has responded to a letter from Republican senators, sharing new facts about its plans to secure American consumer data from ByteDance, its China-centered dad or mum business. The letter was prompted by a BuzzFeed News investigation posted past thirty day period that showed how ByteDance employees dependent in China continuously accessed American users’ info by means of TikTok, even with recurring avowals they experienced not.

In the reaction to the 9 lawmakers, received by the New York Moments, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew mentioned that the online video-sharing system will be operate from servers in Texas owned by Oracle, a Silicon Valley databases huge whose headquarters are in Austin. Its functions and algorithms, the letter suggests, will also be vetted by a 3rd bash.

“We know we are among the the most scrutinized platforms from a safety standpoint, and we goal to remove any doubt about the protection of U.S. user info,” Chew wrote.

In excess of the yrs, American policymakers and lawmakers have scrutinized TikTok’s info-sharing and privateness tactics many thanks to its back links to ByteDance. Thoughts about the level of ByteDance’s involvement in the working day-to-day functions and conclusion making of TikTok have persisted. In 2020, then-president Donald Trump threatened to ban the application over concerns that the Chinese Communist Social gathering could use it to surveil tens of millions of People. Trump afterwards proposed a deal that would have compelled ByteDance to market a section of TikTok to Oracle in buy to purpose in the US, while that prepare never ever materialized. Past thirty day period, BuzzFeed News released a report based on leaked audio from more than 80 inner TikTok meetings that contained 14 statements from nine various TikTok staff exhibiting that the company’s engineers in Beijing had accessed facts of American TikTok people as not too long ago as this year.

BuzzFeed News’ report sparked clean backlash towards the organization, prompting an FCC commissioner to compose to the CEOs of Apple and Google inquiring them to get rid of TikTok from their application retailers.

In the letter, Chew acknowledges that ByteDance workers in China can access US users’ delicate information and facts, noting, nevertheless, that the management of that access is by using a stability staff that is based in the US. Chew does not go into detail as to how choices are built about accessibility.

TikTok is at present negotiating with the Committee on Overseas Financial investment in the United States on what details need to be regarded “protected.” Underneath the settlement, private data, this sort of as cell phone figures and birthdays, would need to have to be saved on servers in Texas owned by Oracle. But BuzzFeed News’ investigation showed that general public information, which involves people’s profiles, comments, and what they write-up, will not be incorporated, likely delivering China-based mostly ByteDance employees with huge insights into what TikTok’s American users care about and their media consumption habits, based on the huge amount of information and facts that could be involved in the “unprotected” bucket of data.

TikTok workers close to the globe, together with individuals in China, would even now have accessibility to this “narrow established of non-delicate TikTok U.S. user information, this sort of as public videos and comments,” Chew’s response to the senators states. “This obtain will be really restricted, it will not consist of non-public TikTok U.S. consumer info, and it will only manifest pursuant to protocols being developed with the U.S. Government.”

The letter does not give insight into the administration structure of US-based TikTok staff reporting to China-based mostly ByteDance bigger-ups, just one of the vital points of BuzzFeed News’ past reporting.