TikTok Will Comply With US Law

ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, has said that it will continue to protect US user data from China. The company's CEO, Shou Zi Chew, who endured close questioning by  congressional hearing, has confirmed that ByteDance will delete all historical US user data by the end of 2023.

Senior US government officials and technology executives have confirmed that the company was working on technologies that would make it impossible for outside threat actors to access US user data.

“The basic approach that we’re following is to make it physically impossible for any government, including the Chinese government, to get access to US user data,” Bytedance's general counsel Erich Andersen told reporters.  He also highlighted ByteDance’s intentions to make Lemon8, a photo- and video-sharing app released in China in 2020 and currently being tested in the US, just as secure.

TikTok has been facing a series of bans on government devices across several countries as legislators worry about sensitive data being accessed by the Chinese government.

ByteDance’s best known app, TikTok, is under intense scrutiny over concerns it could hand over user data to the Chinese government or push pro-Beijing propaganda and misinformation on its behalf. Lemon8 was introduced across app stores in Japan in April 2020 and has been rolled out in more countries since then. It’s available for download in the U.S. and could face similar scrutiny to TikTok.

The FBI, CIA and officials at other government agencies have warned that ByteDance could be forced to give user data, such as browsing history, IP addresses and biometric identifiers, to Beijing under a  law dating from 2014 that compels companies to cooperate with the government for matters involving China’s national security. 

Reuters:     APNews:       Oodaloop:      JDSupra:    Infosecurity Magazine:  

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