TikTok just isn't handing over American customers' information to China: CEO | World News

TikTok sought to reassure US senators this week that it's taking all mandatory steps to restrict entry to customers' information from outdoors the US, together with by staff of its guardian firm, the Chinese language group ByteDance.

The social media firm responded by letter Thursday to questions from 9 Republican US senators about its information storage and entry insurance policies.

The letter was initially printed by the New York Instances, however TikTok has since confirmed its content material to AFP.

In response to earlier inquiries from US authorities, TikTok had indicated in mid-June that every one of its information on US-based customers have been now saved on US-based servers operated by the American firm Oracle.

In its letter on Thursday, TikTok confirmed claims made in a BuzzFeed article that staff based mostly in China had entry to US customers' information, however solely inside "sturdy cybersecurity controls and authorization approval protocols" overseen by the corporate's "U.S.-based safety crew."

The corporate reiterated to the senators that the Chinese language Communist Occasion (CCP) had by no means requested information on American customers.

"We've not offered US consumer information to the CCP, nor would we if requested," it mentioned.

TikTok officers additionally mentioned that whereas ByteDance engineers may work on the platform's algorithms, the brand new protocol ensures that they will solely achieve this in Oracle's computing surroundings, with out extracting information from it.

The favored social media platform is at present being evaluated by the Committee on International Funding in the US (CFIUS), an inter-agency authorities evaluate board that assesses dangers of international investments on US nationwide safety.

Throughout his White Home tenure, former president Donald Trump was involved concerning the safety of the platform's information and tried to pressure ByteDance to promote its subsidiary to Oracle.

He additionally issued govt orders to outright ban the service in the US, however these by no means got here into pressure and have been later revoked by his successor, Joe Biden.

President Biden has nonetheless tasked his administration with measuring the doable dangers related to international possession of social media web sites and apps.