In 2020, then-US President Donald Trump deliberately blocked TikTok, WeChat and other Chinese apps on the grounds that American user data could fall into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. According to the latest news from foreign media, TikTok will reach an agreement with Oracle, a well-known enterprise software service provider, to ensure that ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, cannot obtain US user data, in order to solve the regulatory concerns caused by TikTok in the United States.
Reuters reported on March 11 that in August 2020, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) required ByteDance to divest U.S. assets within 90 days. At that time, media sources pointed out that TikTok would establish an independent company in the United States, but it did not end up. implement.
After Joe Biden takes over as president in 2021, Trump’s ban on TikTok and WeChat has been reversed. Still, Biden asked the Commerce Department to conduct a comprehensive review to assess whether foreign apps pose a risk to U.S. data privacy or national security.
It’s unclear whether CFIUS will decide that TikTok’s partnership with Oracle can address what it sees as a national security risk, the people said. CFIUS declined to respond to this message.
According to people familiar with the matter, under the new cooperation agreement, TikTok will store all U.S. user data on Oracle’s data server, and the two sides will set up an independent team of hundreds of people to specifically manage the data, which is not subject to TikTok’s supervision or jurisdiction.
At present, TikTok US user data is stored in the TikTok data center in Virginia, and has a backup in Singapore.
TikTok is one of the most popular social media apps in the world with over 1 billion active users worldwide.
Jason Tech & Finance News 