On Thursday, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before U.S. Congress in a much anticipated hearing prompted by the U.S. government’s move to ban the video-sharing app, as security concerns from its use heightens.
TikTok has been banned on government-issued devices by governments, including the Congress, in and outside the U.S. The ban stems from concern that U.S. user data can be accessed in China.
Chew told U.S. lawmakers that TikTok employees in China, who had been caught earlier tracking the location of journalists in the West, still have access to some U.S. data from the app. The CEO explained that such access will be completely eliminated at the completion of Project Texas; a risk mitigation plan the company had activated to ameliorate the national security concern that has become an existential threat to the app in the West.
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TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese tech giant based in Beijing. Under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) law, the government is empowered to obtain information from any company when the need arises, particularly in relation to national security.
However, untangling the video-sharing app from its ties with Beijing, to set it free from the CCP law, has become the hard nut to crack. The U.S. has asked TikTok’s Chinese stakeholders to sell their stakes in the company.
The U.S. and its allies are becoming increasingly concerned that ByteDance, upon demand, will deliver user data into the hands of the Chinese government.
TikTok has been trying to move its data centers to the U.S., out of the reach of the Chinese government. Chew, in response to Rep. Bob Latta’s question on whether ByteDance employees could currently access U.S. data, implied that the answer lies on Project Texas.
“After Project Texas is done, the answer is no,” Chew said. “Today, there is still some data that we need to delete.”
CNBC quoted TikTok as saying on Thursday that Project Texas is already in action but there are many steps to reach its completion. The company said it began the process, which includes deleting data from TikTok’s servers in Singapore and Virginia, last week. The data on those servers is the kind that could theoretically still be accessed by China-based ByteDance employees for the time being.
TikTok said once that data is deleted those employees will no longer have access to U.S. user data from the app.
The testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee came amid growing decision by Western governments to prohibit the use of TikTok on work devices due to concern that the app could be used as a back door for Chinese espionage.
There was a bipartisan agreement by the U.S. lawmakers during the testimony that TikTok poses a national security risk through its handling of user data from 150 million Americans.
Chew said that TikTok is a “private business” that, like many others, relies on a “global workforce,” denying that it shares U.S. data with the Chinese Communist Party. The short-form video app had last week denied a report by Wall Street Journal that it represents a Chinese espionage operation. A TikTok spokesperson said in a statement that there is no truth in the allegation.
“Since October of 2022, all new U.S. user data has been stored exclusively in the Oracle Cloud Environment, with protected data fully out of reach of any foreign government,” the spokesperson added. “That data is managed exclusively by U.S. Data Security—a TikTok subsidiary made up of Americans, led and located in America—whose sole focus is to protect U.S. national security interests by securing U.S. user data and preventing outside manipulation of our systems.”
Also, in a statement on Thursday, a TikTok spokesperson criticized the lawmakers and the entire hearing, saying it was “dominated by political grandstanding that failed to acknowledge the real solutions already underway through Project Texas or productively address industry-wide issues of youth safety.” The spokesperson added that the committee failed to take into account the livelihoods of the 5 million businesses on TikTok or the First Amendment implications of banning a platform loved by 150 million Americans.