TikTok tells Republican senators how it plans to keep American data away from China.
TikTok told U.S. lawyers Thursday how to separate data about U.S. users from China’s parent company ByteDance with the aim of countering concerns that video apps pose national security risks. I gave the details in the letter.
In a letter to nine Republican senators, TikTok CEO ShouZi Chew explained how to run an app from a server managed by US cloud computing giant Oracle. TikTok runs from an American company’s machine and is audited by a third party, Chu said. He also repeated plans to store the personal information of American users on Oracle instead of on TikTok’s servers.
“We know that it’s one of the most scrutinized platforms from a security perspective, and we aim to remove doubts about the security of user data in the United States,” Chew said in a letter received by The New York Times. I am writing in.
Very popular in short, viral meme-making videos, TikTok has been working to counter concerns about national security risks. For years, app critics have been worried that the Chinese government will ask ByteDance for data that belongs directly to Americans, and that TikTok will be affected by the Chinese Communist Party.
In 2020, President Donald J. Trump quoted these concerns and demanded that ByteDance sell TikTok if the app remained in the US app store. His administration later announced a deal for ByteDance to sell at least part of TikTok to Oracle, but the deal didn’t happen.
TikTok is under the supervision of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a group of government agencies that scrutinize foreign purchases of US companies.
Last month, BuzzFeed News report ByteDance employees have been able to access the app’s data this year and have had a hard time blocking the information collected by the app.
After the report, nine Republican senators, including Marsha Blackburn in Tennessee and John Thune in South Dakota. Written on TikTok With a question about its practice. Last month, Federal Communications Commission members also said that Apple and Google need to remove TikTok from the app store.
In Mr. Chu’s letter to the Republican Senator, ByteDance employees in China are “subject to a series of robust cybersecurity controls and approval approval protocols monitored by a US-based security team.” I mentioned that I can only access TikTok data if.
He also reiterated the company’s desire to quickly remove US data from its servers and store that information entirely in Oracle. (Some details of the plan were first reported by BuzzFeed.)
“We haven’t spoken publicly about these plans, respecting the confidentiality of our involvement with the U.S. Government, but we are currently trying to eliminate any errors or misunderstandings in the article, and some ongoing concerns related to it. , We need to share some of that information publicly, to other aspects of our business, “he said.
However, Chew also revealed that employees of ByteDance in China are still working on TikTok. Although Oracle “guarantees that training of the TikTok algorithm is done only on the server,” these employees can develop algorithms that provide personalized video recommendations to TikTok users.
Certain information, such as public videos and comments, will continue to be available to ByteDance employees under US government-approved conditions, he said. Experience as a global user. “
