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

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

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

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

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

“After Undertaking Texas is completed, the reply is not any,” Chew mentioned. “Right this moment, there’s nonetheless some knowledge that we have to delete.”

Later within the listening to, in an trade with Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., Chew denied it shares U.S. knowledge with the Chinese language Communist Celebration, saying that TikTok is a “non-public 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 Road Journal article that TikTok represents a Chinese language espionage operation, a TikTok spokesperson mentioned in an announcement there was “no fact” to the allegation.

The spokesperson added on the time that “Since October of 2022, all new U.S. person knowledge has been saved completely within the Oracle Cloud Atmosphere, with protected knowledge absolutely out of attain of any overseas authorities. That knowledge 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 knowledge and stopping exterior manipulation of our techniques.”

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

As soon as that knowledge is deleted, based on TikTok, these workers will not have entry to U.S. person knowledge from the app.

— CNBC’s Rohan Goswami contributed to this report.

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