TikTok's CEO withheld information from Congress: there is U.S. user data being stored in China
The company stated that its CEO's testimony was only based on protected user data and not that of content creators.
(Solen Feyissa / Unsplash)
TikTok acknowledged that its CEO was not completely honest in his statements to Congress. The company differentiated between the storage of data of ordinary users and U.S. content creators.
The video platform's CEO, Shou Zi Chew, had sworn before the House of Representatives that the Chinese app stored U.S. user data in Virginia and Singapore.
However, an investigation recently surfaced showing that the video app did store financial information of U.S. and European content creators on servers in China. This prompted the Senate to send a letter to the company and give it the opportunity to clarify the information.
In response, TikTok explained that there is a difference between "U.S. user data collected by the TikTok app" and the information creators provide to the platform so that they can be paid for the content they publish. The company also confirmed that the data from the first case is indeed stored in the United States and Singapore but declined to clarify the exact location where the latter information is stored.
"We were asked about, and our testimony focused on, the protected user data collected in the app—not creator data. We stand by the statements made by our company executives to Congress," TikTok said in a letter to Senate leaders.
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