TikTok consumer knowledge from the 2 journalists, who labored for the Financial Times and BuzzFeed, was accessed whereas ByteDance workers had been investigating potential worker leaks to the press, based on the corporate.
The private knowledge accessed from the journalists’ accounts included IP addresses, based on the spokesperson. IP addresses can present details about a consumer’s location.
“The individuals involved misused their authority to obtain access to TikTok user data,” TikTok CEO Shou Chew stated in his e-mail to workers, based on an excerpt of the e-mail reviewed by CNN. “This is unacceptable.”
The criticism ramped up earlier this yr after a BuzzFeed News report stated some US consumer knowledge has been repeatedly accessed from China, and cited one worker who allegedly stated that “everything is seen in China”.
TikTok, for its half, has confirmed US consumer knowledge will be accessed by some workers in China, however the firm says {that a} US-based safety crew decides who can entry US consumer knowledge from China.
In October, Forbes reported that ByteDance deliberate to make use of TikTok knowledge to surveil sure US residents. In a Thursday report, Forbes named three journalists who had been tracked by the corporate. (TikTok declined to touch upon whether or not a 3rd journalist had certainly been affected.) The New York Times additionally reported that a number of of the journalists’ contacts on TikTok had additionally gotten wrapped up within the monitoring, which the corporate declined to verify.
“The misconduct of these individuals, who are no longer employed at ByteDance, was an egregious misuse of their authority to obtain access to user data,” Oberwetter stated in a press release Thursday. “This misbehavior is unacceptable, and not in line with our efforts across TikTok to earn the trust of our users.”
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In response to the incident, TikTok stated it has restructured its inside audit and danger groups, and eliminated entry to US consumer knowledge for these groups, based on the spokesperson. “We take data security incredibly seriously, and we will continue to enhance our access protocols, which have already been significantly improved and hardened since this incident took place,” Oberwetter stated.
The Financial Times stated that “spying on reporters, interfering with their work or intimidating their sources is completely unacceptable. We’ll be investigating this story more fully before deciding our formal response,” based on a press release included in a report from the newspaper.
A spokesperson for BuzzFeed stated in a press release to CNN that it’s “deeply disturbed” by the disclosure, calling it a “blatant disregard for the privacy and rights of journalists as well as TikTok users.”
“It’s even more troubling that this comes in the wake of a series of reports by BuzzFeed News that exposed major issues within its parent company, from employees accessing American users’ data from China to ByteDance’s attempts to push pro-China messaging to Americans,” the BuzzFeed spokesperson stated.
More than a dozen states, together with Maryland, South Dakota and Texas, have introduced bans in current weeks of TikTok for state workers on government-issued units, and a small however rising variety of universities are additionally blocking entry to TikTok on school-owned units or WiFi networks.
The Senate earlier this week handed a invoice to ban TikTok from all US authorities units. And a trio of lawmakers has launched laws geared toward banning the short-form video app from working within the United States.
TikTok is presently engaged in longstanding negotiations with the US authorities on a possible deal to handle nationwide safety issues and let the app proceed serving US clients. It has additionally stated it has taken steps to isolate US consumer knowledge from different components of its business, together with by means of a partnership with US-based Oracle.
“No matter what the cause or the outcome was, this misguided investigation seriously violated the company’s Code of Conduct and is condemned by the company,” ByteDance CEO Rubo Liang stated within the Thursday e-mail to workers. “We simply cannot take integrity risks that damage the trust of our users, employees, and stakeholders.”
