TikTok, the Chinese-owned video app, stated on Friday that it was transferring the entire information produced by its American customers through servers managed by Oracle, the Silicon Valley firm, in a bid to persuade the U.S. authorities that it is not going to expose the private data of Americans to the Chinese authorities.
But TikTok added that it would nonetheless retailer its personal backups of that data, doubtlessly complicating these efforts.
The app, which is owned by the Chinese firm ByteDance, stated in a blog post that it anticipated to finally delete American customers’ “personal information from our personal information facilities and totally pivot to Oracle cloud servers situated” within the United States. It didn’t say when that might happen.
“For greater than a yr, we’ve been working with Oracle on a number of measures as a part of our business relationship to higher safeguard our app, methods, and the safety of U.S. consumer information,” Albert Calamug, who works for TikTok’s public coverage division, stated within the put up.
The video app made its announcement earlier than BuzzFeed News published an article detailing how TikTok staff felt it was troublesome to efficiently wall off its information from China. According to recordings the information outlet stated it had obtained, TikTok staff stated Chinese engineers had entry to American information as not too long ago as this yr.
“As we’ve publicly acknowledged, we’ve introduced in world class inside and exterior safety consultants to assist us strengthen our information safety efforts,” TikTok stated in an announcement. The firm added that it had created a unit in May, led from the United States, to “present a better stage of focus and governance” on Americans’ information safety.
In 2020, President Donald J. Trump ordered ByteDance to promote TikTok over issues it might expose the private data of Americans to Beijing. While the White House was stated to have reached a deal to promote a part of the app to Oracle and others, it by no means got here to fruition. The Biden administration has continued scrutinizing TikTok and different alternatives for Chinese corporations to regulate American information.
A White House spokeswoman didn’t reply to a request for remark. A spokesman for the Treasury Department, which is a member of the committee that vets international funding within the United States, declined to remark. Oracle additionally declined to remark.
