Los Angeles: Leaders of the US Senate Intelligence Committee demanded an investigation on Tuesday into whether Chinese officials have access to information about US users of the viral video-sharing app TikTok.
The senators urged Federal Trade Commission (FTC) chairperson Lina Khan in a letter to investigate TikTok’s data security practises.
The letter’s first line said, “We write in response to public claims that individuals in the People’s Republic of China have been accessing data concerning US customers, in violation of many public representations.
Despite the fact that ByteDance, TikTok’s parent business, is based in China, TikTok has consistently denied these accusations, maintaining that ByteDance does not give the Chinese government information about US users.
In our letter to senators last week, we were explicit about our progress in further limiting access through our collaboration with Oracle. Our efforts to limit access to the information across areas have been discussed publicly.
As we have repeatedly stated, TikTok has never provided the Chinese government with access to user data from US users, and we wouldn’t comply if asked. In response to earlier requests from US authorities, TikTok had stated in mid-June that all of its data on US-based users was now stored on US-based servers run by US company Oracle.
