Chinese language-owned social media web site TikTok advised US senators it was engaged on a closing settlement with the Biden Administration that will “absolutely safeguard consumer information and US nationwide safety pursuits,” based on a letter seen Friday by Reuters.
TikTok Chief Govt Shou Zi Chew advised senators in a letter dated Thursday that the quick video app was working with Oracle on “new superior information safety controls that we hope to finalise within the close to future.”
Final month, TikTok mentioned it had accomplished migrating data on its US customers to servers at Oracle but it surely was nonetheless utilizing US and Singapore information centres for backup.
TikTok’s letter acknowledged that China-based workers “can have entry to TikTok US consumer information topic to a collection of sturdy cybersecurity controls and authorisation approval protocols overseen by our US-based safety staff.”
TikTok mentioned because it continues to work on information points it expects “to delete US customers protected information from our personal methods and absolutely pivot to Oracle cloud servers positioned within the US.”
A TikTok spokesperson confirmed the corporate despatched a response to the senators’ letter. “We look ahead to connecting with Members of congress to debate the substance of our letter,” the spokesperson mentioned in a press release to Reuters.
Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn mentioned TikTok “ought to have come clear from the beginning however as a substitute tried to shroud their work in secrecy. People must know that if they’re on TikTok, Communist China has their data. TikTok wants to return again and testify earlier than Congress.”
The letter comes practically two years after a US nationwide safety panel ordered mum or dad firm ByteDance to divest TikTok due to fears that US consumer information may very well be handed on to China’s communist authorities.
“We all know we’re among the many most scrutinised platforms from a safety standpoint and we intention to take away any doubt concerning the safety of US consumer information,” the letter mentioned.
TikTok is without doubt one of the world’s hottest social media apps, with greater than 1 billion lively customers globally, and counts the US as its largest market.
© Thomson Reuters 2022
