TikTok has again denied claims that its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, will share user data of the popular video-sharing app with the Chinese government, or push propaganda and misinformation on its behalf.
China’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday accused the United States of spreading disinformation about TikTok’s potential security risks after a report in the Wall Street Journal that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US – part of the Treasury Department – threatened a US ban on the app. unless the Chinese owners divest their shares.
So what are the real data security risks? And should users worry that the TikTok app will be deleted from their phone?
Here’s what you need to know:
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO GET TIKTOK?
The FBI and the Federal Communications Commission have warned that ByteDance could share TikTok user data — such as browsing history, location and biometric identifiers — with China’s authoritarian government.
A law passed by China in 2017 requires companies to provide the government with personal data that is relevant to the country’s national security. There is no evidence that TikTok has altered the data, but the fear is that it collects a lot of user data, like other social media companies.
Concerns surrounding TikTok increased in December when ByteDance said it fired four employees who accessed data about two journalists from Buzzfeed News and The Financial Times while trying to track down the source of a leaked report about the company.
HOW IS THE US RESPONDING?
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby declined to comment when asked Thursday to address China’s foreign minister’s comments about TikTok, citing a review by the Committee on Foreign Investment.
Kirby also could not confirm whether the government had sent a letter to TikTok that the US government could ban the app if the Chinese owners do not sell their shares but added, “we have legitimate national security concerns about data integrity that we need to look into.”
In 2020, President Donald Trump and his administration sought to force ByteDance to sell its US assets and ban TikTok from app stores. A court blocked the effort, and President Joe Biden overturned Trump’s order but ordered a study into the issue. A planned sale of TikTok’s US assets was also canceled as the Biden administration negotiated a deal with TikTok that would address some national security concerns.
In Congress, U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Jerry Moran, Democrats and Republicans, wrote a letter in February to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen asking the Foreign Investment Panel Committee, which she chairs, to “quickly conclude the investigation and implement strict structural restrictions” among the American operations of TikTok and ByteDance, including the potential separation of the companies.
At the same time, lawmakers have introduced measures that would expand the Biden administration’s authority to impose a national ban on TikTok. The White House has backed the Senate proposal, which has bipartisan support.
TIKTOK HOW DOES IT WORK?
On Thursday, British authorities said they were banning TikTok on government-issued phones for security reasons, following similar measures by the European Union’s executive branch, which temporarily banned TikTok from employees’ phones. Denmark and Canada also announced efforts to block government-issued phones.
Last month, the White House said it would give US federal agencies 30 days to remove TikTok from all government-issued mobile devices. Congress, the US armed forces and more than half of the US states have banned the app.
WHAT DOES TIKTOK MEAN IN ENGLISH?
TikTok spokeswoman Maureen Shanahan said the company has responded to security concerns through “transparent, US-based user data and system protection with robust third-party monitoring, vetting, and verification.”
In June, TikTok said it would redirect all data from US users to servers controlled by Oracle, the Silicon Valley company it has chosen as its US technology partner in 2020 to avoid national bans. But it backs up its data on its own servers in the US and Singapore. The company said it will remove US user data from its own servers, but has not provided a timeline for when that will happen.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is set to testify next week before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the company’s privacy and data security practices, as well as its relationship with the Chinese government.
Meanwhile, TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has tried to position itself as an international company – and less of a Chinese company founded in Beijing in 2012 by current chief executive Liang Rubo and others.
Theo Bertram, TikTok’s vice president of policy in Europe, said in a Tweet Thursday that ByteDance “is not a Chinese company.” Bertram said the ownership is comprised of 60% by global investors, 20% by employees and 20% by the founders. Its leaders are based in cities like Singapore, New York, Beijing and other metropolitan areas.
ARE THE SECURITY RISKS LEGIT?
It depends on who is asking.
Some tech privacy advocates say that while there are potential privacy abuses by the Chinese government, other tech companies have data-harvesting business practices that also exploit user information.
“If policymakers want to protect Americans from surveillance, they should support basic privacy laws that prohibit all companies from collecting sensitive data about us, instead of engaging in so-called xenophobic showboating that does nothing to protect anyone,” Evan said. Greer, director of the nonprofit advocacy group Fight for the Future.
Karim Farhat, a researcher with the Internet Governance Project at Georgia Tech, said the sale of TikTok would be “unrelated to a ‘national security’ threat” and against “every free market principle and norm” of the state department’s internet. principle of freedom.
Others say there are valid reasons for concern.
People who use TikTok may think they’re not doing anything that would be of interest to foreign governments, but that’s not always the case, said Anton Dahbura, executive director of the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute. Important information about the United States is not limited to nuclear power plants or military facilities; it extends to other sectors, such as food processing, the financial industry and universities, said Dahbura.
Is there precedence for BANNING TECH COMPANIES?
Last year, the US banned the sale of communications equipment made by Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE, citing national security risks. But banning the sale of goods can be easier than banning applications, which are accessed through the web.
The move could go to court on grounds that it could violate the First Amendment as some civil liberties groups have argued.