TikTok confirms that China-based employees can access US user data, but only through an 'approval process'

[Nomen Nescio]

TikTok confirmed that China-based employees of its Chinese
parent company, ByteDance, have access to US user data under
certain circumstances in a letter obtained by The New York Times
responding to nine Republican senators' inquiries about the
matter.

"Employees outside the US, including China-based employees, can
have access to TikTok US user data subject to a series of robust
cybersecurity controls and authorization approval protocols
overseen by our US-based security team," TikTok's CEO Shou Zi
Chew wrote in the letter.

"TikTok has an internal data classification system and approval
process in place that assigns levels of access based on the
data's classification and requires approvals for access to US
user data," Chew added. "The level of approval required is based
on the sensitivity of the data according to the classification
system."

Sal Rodriguez, who is currently a reporter for The Wall Street
Journal, first reported for CNBC last year that ByteDance had
access to US data and was closely involved in making decisions
for TikTok.

A new light was shined on the privacy and security concerns
after BuzzFeed News recently reported, based on audio of
internal meetings it obtained, that ByteDance employees had
repeatedly accessed US user data over at least a four-month
period, and that US-based employees did not have permission to
access it.

https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-confirms-us-user-data-
accessed-in-china-bytedance-2022-7

[hey joe]

Sadly none of us should be surprised by this.