TikTok CEO says China-based ByteDance workers nonetheless have entry to some U.S. information

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew advised U.S. lawmakers that China-based workers at its dad or mum firm ByteDance should still have entry to some U.S. information from the app however added that will not be the case as soon as its threat mitigation plan, known as Undertaking Texas, is full.

The change is critical as a result of it will get on the crux of U.S. officers’ fears about TikTok’s possession and in addition reveals how difficult and time-consuming untangling the app from its Chinese language dad or mum firm may be.

Lawmakers and intelligence officers worry that U.S. person information may get into the arms of the Chinese language authorities through ByteDance. That is as a result of Chinese language legislation permits the federal government to acquire inside info from corporations based mostly there for purported nationwide safety functions, as CNBC has reported.

Throughout Chew’s much-anticipated testimony earlier than the Home Power and Commerce Committee, Rep. Bob Latta, R-Ohio, requested Chew if any ByteDance worker in China may at the moment entry U.S. information.

“After Undertaking Texas is finished, the reply is not any,” Chew stated. “At this time, there’s nonetheless some information that we have to delete.”

Later within the listening to, in an change with Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., Chew denied it shares U.S. information with the Chinese language Communist Social gathering, saying that TikTok is a “personal enterprise” that, like many others, depends on a “world workforce.”

In response to a request for remark final week a couple of comment made in a Wall Avenue Journal article that TikTok represents a Chinese language espionage operation, a TikTok spokesperson stated in a press release there was “no fact” to the allegation.

The spokesperson added on the time that “Since October of 2022, all new U.S. person information has been saved completely within the Oracle Cloud Setting, with protected information totally out of attain of any international authorities. That information is managed completely by U.S. Knowledge Safety—a TikTok subsidiary made up of People, led and positioned in America—whose sole focus is to guard U.S. nationwide safety pursuits by securing U.S. person information and stopping exterior manipulation of our techniques.”

TikTok stated Thursday that Undertaking Texas is already in motion however there are numerous steps to achieve its completion. That features deleting information from TikTok’s servers in Singapore and Virginia, a course of it started final week. The information on these servers is the type that would theoretically nonetheless be accessed by China-based ByteDance workers in the meanwhile.

As soon as that information is deleted, in accordance with TikTok, these workers will not have entry to U.S. person information from the app.

— CNBC’s Rohan Goswami contributed to this report.

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