TikTok’s say that it was walling off U. S. customer information from its parent company, Chinese tech giant ByteDance, simply applied to the “front entry” while the game left the rear door wide open, according to previous people.
TikTok failed to cut ties from , ByteDance because , of its complicated computer network architecture, the company’s former head of security engineering , said, according to a record by Fortune.
” All is looking at the front door, but the way to get to the system is through people,” said Patrick Spaulding Ryan, who served as TikTok’s direct technical programme manager from March 2020 to June 2022.
TikTok Ban ( Anadolu /Getty )
He explained that , ByteDance maintained control over some of the inner computer networks where TikTok employees , regularly shared user data, including U. S. customer information.
Ryan’s remarks were reportedly , corroborated by another ex- TikTok staff who left the company in first 2023.
TikTok, however, insists its author’s employees are giving “inaccurate” info, claiming they are” obviously driven by private sources with a predetermined agenda”.
Additionally, the Chinese firm asserts that in 2022, the Chinese Communist Party kept consumer information a secret in Virginia and Singapore. TikTok refrained from responding to claims that some of its venture systems were held in China even after at least 2022.
However, Ryan also made note of TikTok’s effort to separate its U.S. information from China, explaining that people would frequently have to move data from their homes to communicate with and work together with employees.
The other former TikTok employee who , corroborated Ryan’s comments— who spoke with Fortune on the condition of anonymity due to fear of TikTok retaliating by seizing their restricted stock units — explained that when the company’s U. S. Data Security team ( USDS ) made any decisions, they had to be on a Chinese server, “run by the Chinese”.
Similar assertions have been made by another former TikTok employees regarding the app, which is owned by a hostile foreign nation.
As Breitbart News reported, ex- TikTok employees just said the app continued working carefully ByteDance, despite claiming then, with one former employee also saying that he was told to continue working with a Beijing- based executive, actually after he was assigned to a , Seattle- based executive, who, as far as he knows, only existed on paper.
President Joe Biden signed legislation last week that will require ByteDance to sell TikTok within nine months or face a ban in the US.
TikTok CEO , Shou Zi Chew reacted to the new U. S. law saying its Chinese parent company plans to use America’s laws against the United States to fight the sell- or- ban legislation in court, declaring,” The Constitution is on our side”.
ByteDance, meanwhile, said it prefers that TikTok just shuts down in the United States if its legal challenge fails in court.
You can , follow Alana , Mastrangelo on , Facebook , and X/Twitter at , @ARmastrangelo, and on , Instagram.
