US fears around TikTok have been confirmed by a former employee of the Chinese app. Head of risk management, he spent six months at the company before leaving at the beginning of 2022. But a year later he was questioned by the US Congress. This hearing is part of a bill to ban the social network in the United States.
Already banned from the work phones of White House employees, TikTok would be the spy the US administration fears. The ex-director, with whom the newspaper Washington Post was able to speak, he explained to Congress that serious security flaws could expose the personal data of the app’s approximately 100 million users in the United States.
These allegations are denied by the app and its parent company ByteDance. However, they undermine TikTok’s restructuring plan. Called Project Texas, this strategy attempts, with its $1.5 billion budget, to neutralize the risk of theft or misuse of user data by the Chinese government.
“A matter of national security”
At the moment, the US authorities have not been able to prove that the Chinese government had access to the data or the TikTok code. However, the risks of manipulation of opinion, in particular through the algorithm, continues to be one of the key arguments of the United States to prohibit the use of the application in its territory. These fears were also shared by Christopher Ray, the director of the FBI.
The former official, who wanted to testify anonymously for fear of retaliation, believes the Texas Project does not go far enough. The settings implemented by TikTok would not be enough to avoid the risk of data leakage. According to him, a complete review of the way the application works is essential for the social network to be hermetic.
To defend itself, TikTok highlights the departure at the beginning of 2022 of its former employee. A date that would not allow you to know precisely what the Texas Project is trying to implement. The dismissal of the employee was recorded “several months before the end of the project,” the company says. Therefore, it cannot be aware of “the important steps taken by the initiative”, defends TikTok.
Source: BFM TV
