TikTok Data Scientist Sent U.S. User Data to China Every Two Weeks

Apr 17, 2024, 12:18 PM

A former TikTok data scientist has disclosed that despite being officially assigned a Seattle-based manager, he was in fact reporting to a Beijing-based executive from ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. This executive instructed him to regularly send U.S. user data, including personal details like names, IP addresses, and geographic locations, to ByteDance workers in China every two weeks throughout 2022. The revelation contradicts TikTok's public claims of operational independence from China and suggests a direct involvement of American executives in the data transfer process.