On Tuesday, two senators wrote a letter addressed to the CEO of TikTok, which accused the company of providing misleading information to Congress about how it handles and stores American user data. The senators, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, demanded answers to over a dozen questions by the end of next week, specifically about sensitive data that may be stored in China and accessed by Chinese employees. The senators referenced reports from The New York Times and Forbes, which raised questions about statements made during congressional testimony by Shou Chew, TikTok’s CEO, and Michael Beckerman, TikTok’s head of public policy for the Americas. TikTok is a subsidiary of the Chinese company ByteDance.
For years, TikTok has been trying to convince the US government that it can separate its US operations and safeguard American user data to address worries that it may provide said data to Chinese authorities. Forbes reports that TikTok stored sensitive financial information of creators, including Social Security numbers and tax IDs, on Chinese servers that are accessible by Chinese employees. Furthermore, the app uses databases from ByteDance to manage payments for creators who earn money through TikTok. The New York Times also reports that user data, including drivers licenses and possibly illegal content such as child sexual abuse material, was shared on Lark, an internal messaging and collaboration tool, by TikTok and ByteDance employees. The material was shared within “groups” with thousands of members, which included employees in China and elsewhere. Lark data was stored on Chinese servers as of late 2022, but it is unclear if that is still the case. TikTok has yet to respond to questions regarding Lark data storage.
