ALERT SUMMARY: The FCC has recently accelerated it’s effort to have Apple and Google remove TikTok from their app stores as new evidence emerges of China-based employees confirming their access to “non-public” user data. Tiktok’s parent company Bytedance is a China-based company and the privileged access has allowed Tiktok’s China-based employees access to a cornucopia of user data that can be used to analyze and track people. We have been alerted to this issue by the previous Federal government administration already. Will Apple and Google take action? Should you?
Buzzfeednews has recently reported receiving over 80 internal Tiktok meetings disclosing details on China-based employee access to US Tiktok user non-public user data. They revealed evidence that employees stated in internal meetings that all user information is available within China. This evidence includes screenshots and documents showing that not only do Tiktok’s China-based employees have full access to user data but also that they have intentionally obfuscated how the data flow for the app works. In one recording from September 2021, a Tiktok Trust and Safety department member declared “Everything is seen in China.” While another recorded meeting has a Beijing-based engineer being introduced as the “Master Admin” who “has access to everything.” The screenshots and documents provide evidence that Bytedance’s motive to keep US-based employees in the dark about how the Tiktok system works so they can continue to siphon user data.
With this renewed scrutiny, Bytedance has decided to move user data to a US-based data storage company called Oracle. Although this is a good step towards better security controls of user data, it does not address China-based employees that have continued access to the “non-public” data itself nor the charge that it’s data flow mechanisms are very complicated leaving only a few China-based employees with full understanding of it.
Next Steps - For additional details and Step-By Step Instructions on how to protect and respond to this Alert, follow the link below.
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