TikTok denies that ByteDance deliberate to make use of the app to trace people within the US | Engadget

TikTok mentioned it doesn’t accumulate exact GPS location info from customers within the US, which implies it can’t be used to observe individuals “in the way [Forbes] suggested.” The app’s communications crew has tweeted that in response to a Forbes article claiming {that a} China-based crew from its guardian firm, ByteDance, had deliberate to make use of the app to trace “the personal location of some specific American citizens.” It’s unclear if details about these people had truly been collected.

Forbes reported that the crew behind the monitoring undertaking is a part of ByteDance’s Internal Audit and Risk Control division. The division is often accountable for wanting into potential misconduct by present and former firm staff. But the publication mentioned that the group meant to make use of TikTok to gather knowledge concerning the location of a US citizen that had by no means been employed by the corporate in at the very least two instances. 

TikTok has fired again towards the publication’s allegations, accusing Forbes of omitting the a part of its assertion the place it mentioned that it does not accumulate exact GPS location. That portion “disproved the feasibility of [the piece’s] core allegation,” it defined. In addition, TikTok stressed that it has by no means been used to focus on members of the US authorities, public figures, activists and journalists and that it does not serve them content material completely different from different customers. In its report, Forbes wrote that TikTok “did not answer questions” about whether or not the inner audit crew at ByteDance focused members of these teams. 

As Forbes notes, TikTok beforehand made guarantees to American authorities and lawmakers in an effort to assuage their considerations that China may use the app towards US residents. In June, TikTok introduced that it “changed the default storage location of US user data” to “Oracle cloud servers located in the US.” The service made the announcement simply as BuzzFeed News printed a report about China-based ByteDance staff repeatedly accessing nonpublic knowledge on TikTok customers within the US. That report was based mostly on hours of inside conferences that have been leaked to the publication. 

A few weeks later, TikTok detailed its plans on how to make sure the safety of US customers’ knowledge in a letter despatched to to lawmakers. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew assured them that the corporate will “delete US users’ protected data from [its] own systems and fully pivot to Oracle cloud servers located in the US.” Forbes talked to an Oracle spokesperson who mentioned that whereas TikTok is at the moment utilizing its cloud providers, Oracle has no perception on what it is doing and that the service nonetheless has full management of all its info.