TikTok has long insisted that user data from western nations does not enter China, where ByteDance is based. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.Īfter newsletter promotion Can TikTok user data be accessed within China, including by the Chinese state? For more information see our Privacy Policy. Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. TikTok says ByteDance is 60% owned by external investors including the US private equity firm KKR, 20% by its employees and 20% by its founders, Zhang Yiming and Liang Rubo, who carry stronger voting rights than the other shareholders.
The US government does not believe TikTok, and this week confirmed that the Biden administration had asked TikTok’s Chinese owners to sell their stakes in the company or face a complete ban in a key market where it has more than 100 million users. TikTok says it has not received a request from the Chinese government for its data and that, if it did, it would refuse.
#Data guardian code#
TikTok is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, which has led to politicians in the US, the UK and elsewhere voicing fears that Chinese officials could demand access to TikTok’s user data and source code under domestic laws including the National Intelligence Law of 2017, which states that all organisations and citizens shall “support, assist and cooperate” with national intelligence efforts. If there is a security issue that nobody has found – and many have looked – then please tell us all so we can all delete it.” Why are there concerns about the Chinese state accessing TikTok data and its algorithm? “The only argument might be that boring users such as me are not of interest, but there are plenty of professionals outside government where confidentiality is very important. “The bottom line is that if there is a cybersecurity issue for the government users, the same applies to all of us,” says Alan Woodward, a professor of cybersecurity at Surrey University. The decision to declare TikTok a risk on government devices but not on anyone else’s has led to experts calling for more clarity. TikTok has updated its privacy policy to tell European users that their data can be accessed in China – in specific circumstances. However, it added that individuals should be aware of “each social media platform’s data policies” before downloading them. The government said the “proportionate step” did not extend to personal devices for civil servants, ministers or the general public. Why is it not being banned from personal phones in the UK?
This has not been enough to assuage the concerns of critics, who also fear that the Chinese state could manipulate TikTok’s recommendation algorithm, which curates what people see on the app’s For You feed.
It is also proposing to store American and European user data in third-party servers in the US, Ireland and Norway. TikTok maintains that its data is stored outside China in Singapore and the US. Referring to similar bans by the US, Canada and the European Commission, the UK government said: “The government, along with our international partners, is concerned about the way in which this data may be used.”
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