With thanks, Vanessa Pappas, the director of the exploitation of the Chinese application TikTok, to this understood by the commission of the security intérieure du Sénat américain que recherchait des garanties sur la protection des données des utilisateurs américains vis-à-vis de China. But the United States Senate did not get the answers she would have liked to hear. In fact, the latter has refused to promise that ByteDance, the app’s parent company, would not share user data with China.
Chinese data exploitation
This issue reflects Washington’s concerns that US user data could reach the Chinese government and be used to harm US interests. In fact, there is a national security law in China that requires companies based there cooperate with data requests. US officials have raised concerns that China could use Americans’ personal information to identify potentially useful agents, intelligence targets, or to fuel future disinformation campaigns.
Thus, on Wednesday, TikTok repeatedly refused to commit to US lawmakers that the app would end US user data flows to China, promising instead that the outcome of its negotiations with the US government The US “will abide by all national security concerns,” said Vanessa Pappas. .
When asked, “Are there members of the Chinese Communist Party employed by TikTok or ByteDance?”, operations management replied that no one who “makes a strategic decision on this platform” is a member of the Chinese Communist Party. But as for the rest of the app’s staff, she said the company doesn’t vet its employees based on their political affiliations.
A senator asked him if he would be surprised to learn that Forbes magazine recently reported that at least 300 current TikTok or ByteDance employees are members of Chinese state media. Vanessa Pappas reaffirmed that the company does not “look at the political affiliations of individuals.”
TikTok must “adhere to Xi Jinping’s path”
US concerns about TikTok were reignited after a BuzzFeed News report in June, based on leaked meeting recordings, that ByteDance employees accessed US user data on multiple occasions. In a letter to lawmakers, TikTok acknowledged the ability of people based in China to access US user data, but emphasized that cybersecurity controls are overseen by its security team. based in the US
When asked about this by BFMTV last July, TikTok did not deny the existence of these data transfers, even for French users.
As a reminder, the company belongs to the China Federation of Internet Companies, whose statutes are directly engraved by the Chinese government. According to the latter, all the companies of this federation are committed to “adhere to the path of Xi Jinping (Chinese president, editor’s note)”, while accepting the “supervision of the Cyberspace Administration of China (the Chinese government agency in charge internet censorship, editor’s note)”.
Asked about this contradiction between his promises never to provide data to the Chinese authorities and his local commitments, TikTok did not want to answer. The app surpassed 3.5 billion downloads in the first quarter of 2022.
Source: BFM TV
