China-based workers at TikTok’s father or mother firm, ByteDance, repeatedly accessed delicate U.S. consumer information “in contravention of a number of public representations,” the committee mentioned.
TikTok workers who work with delicate US consumer information proceed to report back to ByteDance executives in Beijing, regardless of TikTok’s latest claims to the Senate Intelligence Commitee.
ILLUSTRATION BY STEPHANIE JONES FOR FORBES, PHOTOS by Vicente Méndez/Getty Photographs, Issarawat Tattong/Getty Photographs
The Senate Intelligence Committee has despatched a letter to the Federal Commerce Fee asking that it open an investigation into whether or not TikTok misled U.S. lawmakers about China-based workers of its father or mother firm, ByteDance, accessing American consumer information.
The letter, signed by committee chairman Senator Mark Warner and vice chairman Senator Marco Rubio, cites “repeated misrepresentations by TikTok regarding its information safety, information processing, and company governance practices.” (Disclosure: In a former life, I held coverage positions at Fb.)
It references a bombshell BuzzFeed Information report that China-based workers of ByteDance commonly accessed delicate U.S. consumer information into early 2022, in keeping with leaked audio from greater than 80 inner conferences regarding TikTok’s efforts to scale back the move of knowledge from the U.S. to China by a take care of cloud supplier Oracle. (TikTok has since confirmed that ByteDance workers in China can entry delicate U.S. consumer information.)
“Whereas TikTok has advised that migrating to U.S.-based storage from a U.S. cloud service supplier alleviates any danger of unauthorized entry, these newest revelations elevate considerations concerning the reliability of TikTok representations,” Warner and Rubio write.
The letter additionally highlights BuzzFeed Information’ reporting that TikTok workers who work with delicate U.S. consumer information proceed to report back to ByteDance executives in Beijing, regardless of TikTok’s latest claims to the Senate Intelligence Committee that “all company governance selections are wholly firewalled from their PRC-based father or mother, ByteDance.”
“For 2 years, we have talked overtly about our work to restrict entry to consumer information throughout areas, and in our letter to senators final week we had been clear about our progress in limiting entry even additional by our work with Oracle,” TikTok spokesperson Maureen Shanahan mentioned in response to a request for remark. “As we have mentioned repeatedly, TikTok has by no means shared U.S. consumer information with the Chinese language authorities, nor would we if requested.”
The FTC confirmed receipt of the letter, however declined to remark.
TikTok has been beneath scrutiny since 2019, when the Committee on Overseas Funding in the USA (CFIUS) started investigating ByteDance’s acquisition of Musical.ly, the app that grew to become TikTok, as a possible nationwide safety danger. CFIUS declined to remark.
In 2020, considerations that the Chinese language authorities may use TikTok’s huge assortment of knowledge to surveil U.S. residents prompted then-President Donald Trump to threaten to ban the app until it was offered to a U.S. firm. The ban by no means occurred, however TikTok as a substitute started working with CFIUS and Oracle to limit entry to some delicate information about U.S. customers from ByteDance workers in China, an effort referred to as Venture Texas.
Whereas TikTok and ByteDance publicly downplayed their relationship and emphasised that U.S. consumer information is saved within the U.S., the leaked conferences about Venture Texas reveal the extent to which China-based workers have had entry to this information. “Every thing is seen in China,” a member of TikTok’s Belief and Security division mentioned in a September 2021 assembly.
The revelation has revived lawmakers’ fears about ByteDance’s relationship with TikTok and TikTok’s plans to safeguard American information. On June 24, six senators despatched a letter to the Treasury Division asking for particulars of the negotiation between TikTok and CFIUS, which experiences into Treasury. On June 28, Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr referred to as on Apple and Google to take away TikTok from their app shops.
That very same day, 9 Republican senators additionally despatched TikTok a letter, asking questions on China-based ByteDance workers’ entry to U.S. consumer information and elevating considerations that TikTok’s Head of Public Coverage for the Americas Michael Beckerman “didn’t present truthful or forthright solutions to the Senate Commerce Committee” at a 2021 listening to.
TikTok responded to the letter by saying that ByteDance workers exterior of the U.S. can entry delicate U.S. information, so long as they’ve been licensed to take action by a U.S.-based safety group. The letter doesn’t tackle the truth that workers licensed to work with U.S. consumer information (together with the brand new United States Technical Companies group, created as a part of Venture Texas) report back to ByteDance management in Beijing.
