A new report from Forbes alleges social media giant TikTok stores creators’ sensitive personal information, such as social security numbers and tax IDs, in China, despite previous denials by top officials in the Chinese company, including CEO Shou Zi Chew.
The Forbes report contradicts Chew’s March statement to Congress, in which he claimed under oath that TikTok keeps the personal and financial data of its U.S. users in Virginia and Singapore, and assured lawmakers “The bottom line is this: American data stored on American soil by an American company overseen by American personnel.” The CEO’s apparent perjury prompted Sen. Marco Rubio to call for a Justice Department investigation.
“TikTok’s CEO has a lot of explaining to do, but his lies aren’t a surprise,” Sen. Rubio explained to The Federalist. “TikTok lies to everyone from creators to regulators. The user data that TikTok stores in China or makes accessible to its Chinese engineers can be weaponized at any time by the Chinese Communist Party.”
This new evidence, to say nothing of Chew’s prior acknowledgment of Chinese access to American data, refusal to guarantee protections for Americans’ health information, and unwillingness to condemn the company’s past spying on American journalists, adds to a list of growing concerns over the threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party-linked app.
The report relies on records provided by multiple anonymous sources that allege TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, stores the financial information of American content creators and businesses — particularly those who have opted into the platform’s monetization and
