TikTok allows employees in China to access European data

Nov. 3 (UPI) -- TikTok employees are able to see data from European users, the China-based company said in a notification of privacy policy updates.

"We allow certain employees within our corporate group located in Brazil, Canada, China, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, and the United States remote access to TikTok European user data," read a statement from Elaine Fox, Head of Privacy for Europe at TikTok.

The statement, part of an effort to increase transparency into how the company shares data, said employees can access data "based on a demonstrated need to do their job, subject to a series of robust security controls."

The privacy policy applies to users in the "European Economic Areas, United Kingdom and Switzerland," the company said.

Though TikTok has claimed to protect user data, a series of reports have cast doubt on that assertion. In June, BuzzFeed reported that sensitive U.S. user data, like birthdays and phone numbers, had been repeatedly accessed by employees in China.

In July, BuzzFeed reported that former employees at ByteDance, which owns TikTok, claimed that employees were instructed to place specific pro-China content on TopBuzz, a now-defunct English-language news app also owned by ByteDance.

Brendan Carr, one of the commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission told Axios that the Council of Foreign Investment in the United States should take action to ban TikTok.

"I don't believe there is a path forward for anything other than a ban," Carr said.

Carr contacted Apple and Google asking them to remove TikTok and Bytedance apps from their app stores due to concerns about user privacy.

"Commissioner Carr has no role in the confidential discussions with the U.S. government related to TikTok and appears to be expressing views independent of his role as an FCC commissioner," a TikTok spokesperson told Axios in response to Carr.

Former President Donald Trump entered a public spat with TikTok, calling for the app to be banned in 2020.

In September, The New York Times reported that negotiations were underway between TikTok and the Biden administration to resolve security concerns.