Chinese-owned social media site TikTok told US senators it is working on a final agreement with the US government that “will fully safeguard user data and US national security interests,” according to a letter seen Friday by Reuters.
TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew told senators in a letter dated Thursday the short video app was working with Oracle on “new advanced data security controls that we hope to finalize in the near future.” Last month, TikTok said it has completed migrating information on its US users to servers at Oracle but it still is using US and Singapore data centers for backup.
TikTok’s letter acknowledged that China-based employees “can have access to TikTok US user data subject to a series of robust cybersecurity controls and authorization approval protocols overseen by our US-based security team.” TikTok said as it continues to work on data issues it expects “to delete US users protected data from our own systems and fully pivot to Oracle cloud servers located in the US.”
The New York Post reported Thursday that TikTok has been quietly telling advertisers it is exploring a possible move out of China and may even consider a spinoff from its Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance.
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
