TikTok CEO Offers Data Security Commitments Amid Bipartisan Criticism, Calls to Ban Platform

TikTok Chief Executive Officer Shou Zi Chew, the only witness at the nearly five-and-a-half-hour hearing repeatedly denied that TikTok answers to the Chinese government, stating that its parent company ByteDance is a private company. Mr. Chew also cited TikToks ongoing efforts to store all data on A...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inTelecommunications Reports Vol. 89; no. 6; pp. 3 - 6
Main Author Stanton, Lynn
Format Trade Publication Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Washington Aspen Publishers, Inc 31.03.2023
Subjects
Bans
Bipartisanship
Chief executive officers
Committees
Data integrity
Employees
International financing
Legislation
Legislators
Political parties
Privacy
Social networks
Telecommunications policy
United States > US
Texas
Online AccessGet full text
ISSN0163-9854

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Summary:TikTok Chief Executive Officer Shou Zi Chew, the only witness at the nearly five-and-a-half-hour hearing repeatedly denied that TikTok answers to the Chinese government, stating that its parent company ByteDance is a private company. Mr. Chew also cited TikToks ongoing efforts to store all data on American users on American soil, overseen by American employees of its TikTok U.S. Data Security (USDS) subsidiary, in what it calls Project Texas, although he acknowledged the company is still deleting data that is stored on servers outside the U.S. Several lawmakers from Texas objected to the association of their state with TikToks initiative, which is named for the location of Oracle, which is storing the data. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), an interagency group led by the Treasury Department that reviews foreign business transactions for national security threats, is working on a deal that would require TikTok to store all U.S. user data on secure U.S.-based infrastructure and would create a U.S.-controlled board to oversee TikToks U.S. operations, among other things. Data access would also be subject to information security controls that would be approved by both a U.S. government-approved third-party monitor and a third-party auditor.
ISSN:0163-9854