Former President Trump has been warning that TikTok is selling American user’s data to Communist China for years now, expressing concern that information gathered about Americans is being transferred to the CCP.
However TikTok has promised that American users information stays in the U.S. despite leaked audio from more than 80 internal TikTok meetings, China-based employees of ByteDance have repeatedly accessed nonpublic data about US TikTok users.
And more recently, TikTok’s Chief Operating Officer Vanessa Pappas could not guarantee that it would cut off ‘all data and metadata flows to China’.
Earlier this week, Pappas testified before the US Senate Homeland Security Committee over details about the company.
“Will TikTok commit to cutting off all data and data flows to China, China-based TikTok employees, ByteDance employees, or any other party in China that might have the capability to access information on US users?” Asked Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH).
Repeatedly declining to comment, Pappas vowed to “satisfy all national security concerns” with its negotiations with the U.S. government.
Despite having offices in China, Pappas insisted that TikTok does not operate in the Communist country.
However concerns grow over the fact that Chinese national security law requires companies located there must cooperate with data requests from the government.
This stresses the possibility that U.S. user data could be transferred to the Chinese government and used to undermine U.S. interests.
By the end of the hearing, Pappas did admit that TikTok’s Chinese employees do have access to U.S. user data but insisted that the company has said that it would give the data to China, despite not clarifying if ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, would keep U.S. user data from the Chinese government.