TikTok Claims Strong Data Security, Still Planning to Improve It Further

Lawmakers have ramped up suggestions that video-sharing app TikTok is a surveillance tool for the Chinese Communist party. In response to a call from an FCC commissioner for app stores to ban the app, TikTok’s parent company has opened up. The company wants U.S. officials to know it already has strong data security for TikTok, and it’s only going to get stronger.
FCC and Other Lawmakers Call for TikTok Ban
Earlier, we reported on an open letter from FCC commissioner Brendan Carr. Carr called TikTok a sophisticated surveillance tool used by the Chinese government to spy on Americans. The commissioner called on Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their respective app stores.
The issues cropped back up following a Buzzfeed report that TikTok engineers in China had access to U.S. data from at least September 2021 until January 2022. TikTok has repeatedly insisted it stores U.S. data in the United States, which would lead users to believe their information was safe from prying Beijing eyes.
In its own letter (PDF) responding to the concerns, ByteDance confirmed that certain employees outside the U.S. do, indeed, have access to information from American users. The company claimed, however, that these employees must clear a number of internal security protocols first. TikTok’s U.S.-based security team oversees these security protocols, the company insists.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said none of the information is shared with the Chinese government.
Moving US Data to American Servers
TikTok is continuing to move data from U.S. users to American servers, the company said. In fact, Chew claimed that “we now store 100% of U.S. user data by default in the Oracle cloud environment.” He also stated that TikTok is working with Oracle on “new, advanced data security protocols” it hopes to finalize soon.
These servers, owned by Oracle, are maintained within domestic data centers. Nevertheless, some lawmakers remain unconvinced TikTok or its parent company are truly sincere.
Senator Marsha Blackburn, of Tennessee, voiced concerns to Bloomberg.
TikTok’s response confirms our fears about the CCP’s influence in the company were well founded. The Chinese-run company should have come clean from the start, but it attempted to shroud its work in secrecy. Americans need to know if they are on TikTok, Communist China has their information.
Only time will tell just how U.S. lawmakers respond to TikTok’s reassurances. It’s definitely concerning that the Chinese company kept its practices so pace for this long. Neither Apple nor Google have yet responded to commissioner Carr’s request that they delete TikTok from their app stores.
Tags: Apple, iOS, TikTok