TikTok in trouble because China accessed user data
For a long time, TikTok was accused of mishandling information for users based in the United States. How itwas accessing it is no longer a secret. According to a Mashable report published on June 17th, TikTok’s parent company ByteDance in fact did access user data and recordings from engineers in China reviewed by BuzzFeed News confirm the suspicions.
In the above news analysis, nine TikTok employees illustrates China has accessed data from September 2021 through January 2022. In addition, a company employee from TikTok’s Trust and Safety Department acknowledged China can see the data.
TikTok releases statement on data controversy
As the news broke out about TikTok data practices, the popular app released a statement. I included a link to the press release for context and clarification. They added that with the Oracle partnership the data will be routed to the Oracle Cloud.
“Today, 100% of US user traffic is being routed to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. We still use our US and Singapore data centers for backup, but as we continue our work we expect to delete US users’ private data from our own data centers and fully pivot to Oracle cloud servers located in the US.”
To be honest for those of us who use TikTok, including myself, we know our data is harvested from existing social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Moreover, Google has plenty of user data from people in the U.S and around the globe. Why is this so different?
If you remember that geopolitical forces have drastically changed in the last four years. These include presidents or heads of states moving to protectionism and setting up tariff wars that have transpired with China and the U.S.
It has been like this as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic where the origin of the virus can be traced back to China, but as to how it mutated so rapidly is still a mystery.
Cannot forget the Cambridge Analytica scandal
It is true we have not created laws around privacy and user data. It is the next frontier and human rights issue. It gives private entities, corporations and governments too much power over what we do with our devices when connected online.
We all suspected TikTok to have access in some capacity to our data. However, Facebook confirmed that millions of users had their data harvested and utilized for the 2016 presidential election. What have we done about it? The discussion is up for debate, and the U.S cannot preach to the rest of the world if it is guilty of using data from other users around the world. In other words, when they have access to information it gives them power and privilege over how to set the terms.
We need comprehensive legislation that looks at privacy and establishes norms over user data practices. We cannot continue with the “us” vs. “them” narrative to get the job done. China and the U.S have strong economies that rely on each other, so it be about time to come back to the table and come up with concrete solutions instead of scapegoating a false dilemma.
