My sources told me how the company is definitely sending user data to China

 

I’ve researched TikTok for a year. My sources told me how the company is definitely sending user data to China.

 

• TikTok denies it would share user data with the government of China, where its parent company is based.
• But Ireland’s data protection watchdog recently said it is sending user data to the country, if not the government.
• Author Chris Stokel-Walker, who is researching for TikTok for a book, explains how it does send data to China.

   Irish data protection commissioner Helen Dixon told an online conference earlier in March that engineers in China “may” be accessing the data of European TikTok users.

In writing a book on TikTok, I’ve learned there’s no “may” about it: the hugely popular video app does send some European and American data to China. Multiple sources within the company have confirmed it to me over the last year.

Whether TikTok, whose parent firm ByteDance is headquartered in Beijing, sends this data to China is an awkward question. The company has more than 100 million monthly active users in the US and a similar number in Europe.

There’s the concern that the Chinese government may requisition that data at any time under the guise of national security, breaching Western users’ privacy. There are also wider tensions between the West and China. 

TikTok has been quietly sending job applicants’ personal data to China