TikTok confirms that US user data can be accessed in China

TikTok has confirmed that employees of China-based parent company ByteDance can access US user data under certain conditions. in a message he got it New York times Responding to inquiries from nine Republican senators on the matter.

TikTok CEO Xu Ziqiu wrote in a message.

“TikTok has an in-house data classification system and approval process that assigns access levels based on data classification and requires approvals to access US user data,” Chiu added. The level of consent required depends on the sensitivity of the data as per the classification system.

Sal Rodriguez, who is currently a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, It was first reported by CNBC In the past year, ByteDance gained access to US data and was closely involved in making TikTok decisions.

New light on privacy and security concerns has been shed next BuzzFeed News I recently mentioned, based on the audio of internal meetings I got, that ByteDance employees Repeatedly accessed US user data For at least four months, US-based employees did not have permission to access it.

In a statement to BuzzFeed News for its report, a TikTok spokesperson said in part: “We know we are among the most vetted platforms from a security standpoint, and we aim to remove any doubt about the security of US user data.”

On the same day BuzzFeed News published its story, TikTok announced that “100% of US user traffic is directed to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure,” rather than being stored in its data centers in the US and Singapore.

In the letter, Chiu wrote that the BuzzFeed News report “contains allegations and allusions that are untrue and not supported by facts.”

After BuzzFeed News published its report, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said Apple and Google called to remove TikTok from their app stores.