US Senate Intelligence Committee chairmen on Tuesday called for an investigation into whether Chinese officials are being given access to data on US users of video snippet-sharing sensation TikTok.
In a letter to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan, senators urged them to look into how well TikTok protects private data.
“We are writing in response to public reports that individuals in the People’s Republic of China have accessed data on US users, contrary to multiple public accounts,” the letter said.
TikTok has consistently defended itself against such accusations, stating that it does not share data on US users with the Chinese government, even though parent company ByteDance is based in China.
“We’ve been open about our work to restrict access to user data in all regions, and in our letter to senators last week we made it clear that through our work with Oracle, we’ve made progress in restricting access even further ‘ a TikTok spokesman replied to an AFP query.
“As we have said repeatedly, TikTok has never disclosed US user data to the Chinese government, nor would we if asked.”
In response to previous requests from US authorities, TikTok announced in mid-June that all of its data about US-based users is now stored on US-based servers operated by US company Oracle.
TikTok responded by letter last week to questions from nine Republican senators about its data retention and access policies.
In that letter, TikTok confirmed claims from a BuzzFeed article that China-based employees could access US users’ data, but only under “robust cybersecurity controls and permission protocols” maintained by the company’s “US-based security team.” company would be monitored.
TikTok officials also said that while ByteDance engineers could work on the platform’s algorithms, the new protocol ensures they can only do so in Oracle’s computing environment without extracting data from it.
The popular social media platform is currently under evaluation by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an interagency government review body that assesses the risks of foreign investment to US national security.
Concerned about the security of the platform’s data during his tenure in the White House, former President Donald Trump tried to force ByteDance to sell its subsidiary to Oracle.
He also issued executive orders to ban service entirely in the United States, but these never went into effect and were later revoked by his successor, Joe Biden.
President Biden has nonetheless tasked his administration with measuring the potential risks associated with foreign ownership of social media sites and apps.
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