The US Department of Justice and the FBI have launched an investigation into why ByteDance, the company that owns the TikTok app, allegedly spied on American journalists.
According to a source from the Department of Justice, quoted by ‘Forbes’, the Fraud section of the Criminal Division is working together with the Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, after having requested information from the Chinese company about the attempts of its employees to access geolocation of American journalists, as well as other private data of the users of the TikTok application.
The company confirmed, after an internal investigation, that the application had been used by some of its employees to obtain information about US users.
In a statement, cited by Efe, the ByteDance spokeswoman said that the company “vehemently condemns the actions of the people who have been involved” in the controversy and guarantees that they no longer work for the company.
According to sources cited by Forbes, the FBI is also conducting investigations on the same subject, although they have not confirmed whether the investigations are joint or respond to different causes.
A few days ago, the US Foreign Investment Committee required ByteDance to sell its stake in TikTok to continue operating in the United States, where it has more than 100 million users.
In February, the US Administration ordered the removal of TikTok from all official mobile phones, a decision that was replicated by the European Commission and followed in countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom and Taiwan.
Source: TSF
