The standoff between TikTok and the United States continues to deliver new revelations. For several months, the Chinese firm has been telling anyone who will listen that all the data of American users of the application is stored in the United States… until doing an about-face this week. Indeed, the social network has brought a small precision of sizes: the personal data of the creators, they are indeed stored in China.
This is a question that TikTok definitely can’t escape: what happens to the data of users residing outside of China? In Europe, the answer is more or less known. TikTok says it itself, your personal data is indeed sent to China. But for the United States, the case could not be more thorny. Indeed, given the growing mistrust of the superpower towards its great rival, the platform has every interest in affirming that the data of American users is stored within the country itself, as well as in Singapore.
Despite everything, TikTok maintains a certain vagueness around the subject. Last March, its CEO Shou Zi Chew already admitted during a hearing at the Capitol that some data was still sent to China. We now know a little more. At the end of May, Forbes published a survey revealing that the data of the creators of the platform, who are paid by it for their videos, do see their personal data sent to the Middle Kingdom.
TikTok admits lying to US about storing personal data
Following this investigation, several American senators contacted TikTok to clarify this matter. In a response letter, the firm finally provides some (thin) details. Indeed, TikTok marks a difference between the data of occasional users of the application and that of its creators, who are paid by the partner program. If the data of the first are indeed stored in the United States and Singapore, this is not the case for those of the second which are sent to China.
Related — TikTok Files Lawsuit Against US After Being Banned In Montana
“We were asked about protected user data collected in the app, and our testimony focused on that data, not creator data. », TikTok justifies itself in its letter, specifying that according to its terms, this does not invalidate its previous statements in front of Congress. Among the data subject to an exception for the platform are “public data, commercial measures, interoperability data and certain creator data”, explains the latter.
TikTok nevertheless assures that the Chinese government has no access to this data and that this will never be the case. “TikTok’s response makes it clear that Americans’ data is still exposed to Beijing’s draconian and pervasive spy regimes, despite claims from TikTok’s misleading PR campaign,” retort the senators.
Source: Forbes