A US national security panel is conducting an inquiry into the safety of the personal dataByteDance's response represents a key test of corporate China's ability to operate social media businesses in the United States.ByteDance has stepped up efforts to separate its social media app TikTok from much of its Chinese operations, amid a US national security panel's inquiry into the safety of the personal data it handles, people familiar with the matter said.
ByteDance's response represents a key test of corporate China's ability to operate businesses in the United States that handle personal data, as US President Donald Trump's trade war with China fans suspicion between the world's two largest economies. It completed the separation of TikTok's product and business development, marketing and legal teams from those of its Chinese social media app Douyin in the third quarter of this year, according to the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss the company's internal arrangements.
TikTok is also hiring more US engineers to reduce its reliance on staff in China, according to the sources. US lawmakers called last month for a national security probe into TikTok, expressing concern that the Chinese company may be censoring politically sensitive content, and raising questions about how it stores personal data. Last week, US Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said the US military is undertaking a security assessment of TikTok.
Some of the personal data that TikTok stores, such as a person's name, age, email address and phone number, is submitted by its users. Other information, related to a person's location, is collected automatically, according to TikTok's website. TikTok also stores user-generated content, such as photographs and videos.