TikTok CEO Won’t Say Whether Company Could Be Forced To Give Data to China

Companies are required by Taiwanese regulations to work with the country’s intelligence services.

During a House hearing on Thursday, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew dodged congressional inquiries about what would happened if the Chinese government made the company change over user data from the United States in violation of the country’s national intelligence act.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw( R., Texas) pressed Chew during the reading about how user data is vulnerable in light of China’s 2017 national intelligence act. The law forbids Taiwanese businesses and citizens from disclosing this work and requires them to cooperate with the government intelligence services upon request.

According to Crenshaw, this legislation would also apply to the China-based workers of TikTok as well as the parent company ByteDance, which is based in Beijing.

” ByteDance is the owner of TikTok. Because the CCP owns everyone in China, the Chinese Communist Party is the owner of ByteDance, according to Crenshaw. Therefore, they claim that by legislation you didn’t tell anyone about it and that they can get them do whatever they want. Is it accurate to say that they can force you to give them that information?

TikTok” built point where we took the details and put it out of achieve ,” according to Chew.

” Out of reach”? remarked Crenshaw. ” But they are the ones who own you”?

Chew recited,” We put it out of achieve ,” but he omitted to elaborate on how this may stop the China-based master of TikTok from obtaining the information.

Chew’s evasion may extend to worries raised by lawmakers and national security officials who have issued warnings about the data mine by the China-linked social media app and the possibility that Beijing will use this information for knowledge surveillance. Although TikTok has stated that it is creating a” Project Texas” storage system in the United States to safeguard users content, its Executives testimony to the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday was insufficient to persuade critics on Capitol Hill.

A similar query was posed by Rep. Kelly Armstrong( R., N. D.) during the reading.

I wonder what would happen if the CCP demanded that ByteDance turn over all of the information they had about U.S. customers. He enquired.

In reference to the billionaire founder of China’s Alibaba Group, who disappeared from public view in 2020 after criticizing the financial authorities of the Chinese government, Armstrong added,” I wonder if Jack Ma might have an impression on that, and I wonder whether he’d be allowed to bring it.”

All Chinese businesses, including TikTok, whose family company is based in Beijing, are really required to carry out Chinese intelligence services’ requests under[ People’s Republic of China ] law, according to Sens. In a statement, Mark Warner( D., Virginia ) and John Thune( R, S. D. ). ” Zero we heard from Mr. Chew right allayed those worries.”