TikTok’s Global Security Chief to Step Down, Reveals Internal Memo

TikTok’s international chief safety officer Roland Cloutier, who oversees cybersecurity, is stepping down from his position however will keep on the firm, in accordance with an inside memo seen by Reuters.

“With our recent announcement about data management changes in the US, it’s time for me to transition from my role as Global Chief Security Officer into a strategic advisory role focusing on the business impact of security and trust programs, working directly with (CEO) Shou, ByteDance (VP of Technology) Dingkun and other senior leaders,” Cloutier wrote within the memo.

TikTok, the video-sharing app owned by China’s ByteDance, employed Cloutier from payroll processing firm Automated Data Processing (ADP) in 2020, amid rising scrutiny from the US regulators on the corporate’s dealing with of private information.

Kim Albarella, a senior member at TikTok’s safety staff, will function interim head of Global Security. Albarella beforehand labored for ADP for greater than a decade.

Meanwhile, the corporate proceed to be underneath scrutiny by the EU and the US regulators. A number of days again, Italy’s information safety authority has formally warned TikTok about an alleged breach of present European Union guidelines to safeguard consumer privateness.

TikTok had instructed customers in current weeks that it was going to ship focused promoting to them from July 13, with out requesting consent for utilizing information saved of their units, the Italian watchdog mentioned.

On the opposite hand, the US Senate Intelligence Committee chair and high Republican have known as on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to research social media app TikTok and Chinese mother or father ByteDance as a result of “repeated misrepresentations” over its dealing with of US information.

The request on from Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat, and Republican Marco Rubio adopted a Buzzfeed report saying the brief video app permitted TikTok engineers and executives in China to repeatedly entry personal information of US customers. The senators mentioned such entry raised questions over TikTok’s claims to lawmakers and customers that the info was protected.

© Thomson Reuters 2022