New TikTok Privacy Policy Confirms Chinese Staff Can Access European Users’ Data

Popular short-form video-sharing service TikTok is revising its
privacy policy^[1]
for European users to make it explicitly clear that user data can
be accessed by some employees from across the world, including
China.

The ByteDance-owned platform, which currently stores European
user data in the U.S. and Singapore, said the revision is part of
its ongoing data governance efforts to limit employee access to
users in the region, minimize data flows outside of it, and store
the information locally.

The privacy policy update applies to users located in the U.K.,
the European Economic Area (EEA), and Switzerland, and goes into
effect on December 2, 2022, according to The Guardian^[2].

“Based on a demonstrated need to do their job, subject to a
series of robust security controls and approval protocols, and by
way of methods that are recognised under the GDPR, we allow certain
employees within our corporate group located in Brazil, Canada,
China, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South
Korea, and the U.S. remote access to TikTok European user data,”
the company said^[3].

TikTok further said its security controls consist of system
access restrictions, encryption, and network security, adding it
doesn’t collect precise location information from its users in
Europe.

The development also takes place against mounting regulatory
scrutiny of the platform on both sides of the Atlantic, which has
over one billion monthly active users. ByteDance has repeatedly
denied it is controlled by the Chinese government.

In July 2022, it hit the brakes on a controversial privacy policy
update^[4] in Europe that could
have allowed it to serve targeted ads based on users’ activity on
the social video platform without their explicit consent.

It has also faced rough weather in the U.S., what with Brendan
Carr, a Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC), calling^[5]
for a ban^[6]
of the application over national security concerns that user data
could be accessed by Chinese authorities.

Last month, the company contested^[7]
a report^[8]
from Forbes that a China-based team at ByteDance planned to use the
platform to track the locations of select U.S. citizens without
their knowledge or permission.