TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will inform lawmakers the Chinese-owned brief video app with greater than 150 million American customers has by no means, and would by no means, share U.S. consumer information with the Chinese authorities amid rising U.S. nationwide safety issues.
“TikTok has never shared, or received a request to share, U.S. user data with the Chinese government. Nor would TikTok honor such a request if one were ever made,” Chew will testify on Thursday, in response to written testimony posted on Tuesday by the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee.
He added that TikTok’s father or mother firm ByteDance isn’t owned or managed by any authorities or state entity. “Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” Chew will say to the committee.
TikTok’s critics concern that its U.S. consumer information may very well be handed on to China’s authorities by the app and prompted rising calls to ban the app U.S. lawmakers. Last week, TikTok stated the Biden administration demanded that its Chinese homeowners divest their stake within the app or it might face a U.S. ban.
“Bans are only appropriate when there are no alternatives. But we do have an alternative,” Chew’s testimony stated.
TikTok has stated it has spent greater than $1.5 billion on what it calls rigorous information safety efforts below the title “Project Texas.”
Chew stated when the method is full “all protected U.S. data will be under the protection of U.S. law and under the control of the U.S.-led security team. Under this structure, there is no way for the Chinese government to access it or compel access to it.”
The firm stated it had began this month to delete U.S. consumer protected information in information facilities in Virginia and Singapore after it began routing new U.S. information to the Oracle Cloud final 12 months. Chew’s testimony stated it expects this course of to be accomplished later this 12 months.
Chew’s testimony says 60% of ByteDance is owned by world institutional buyers together with Blackrock, General Atlantic,
and Sequoia, about 20% by the corporate’s founders, and about
20% owned by its workers “including thousands of Americans.”
TikTok stated on Monday that greater than 150 million folks within the United States use TikTok on a month-to-month foundation after saying in 2020 that 100 million Americans used the app. Chew’s testimony says the typical consumer in the present day is an grownup effectively previous faculty age.
“While users in the United States represent 10% of our global community, their voice accounts for 25% of the total views around the world,” Chew’s testimony says.
Chew says present variations of the app don’t gather exact or approximate GPS data from U.S. customers.
