TikTok migrates US user data to Oracle servers and ensures information security

 

TikTok said it has completed migrating information about its US users to Oracle's servers, which could address US regulatory concerns about data integrity in the popular short-form video app.

The move, first reported by Reuters, comes nearly two years after a US national security body ordered parent company ByteDance to divest TikTok amid concerns that US user data could be leaked to the Chinese communist government.

TikTok is one of the most popular social media apps in the world with over a billion active users worldwide and counts the United States as its largest market.

The US is increasingly scrutinizing app developers about the personal data they process, particularly when some of it concerns the US military or intelligence agencies.

The order to sell TikTok was not enforced after Joe Biden replaced Donald Trump as President of the United States last year.

However, the body, known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), continued to raise concerns about data security at TikTok, which ByteDance now wants to address, Reuters previously reported.

The White House had no immediate comment, while the US Treasury Department declined to comment.

In March, Reuters reported that TikTok was close to reaching an agreement with Oracle to store its US users' information.

Oracle had considered acquiring a minority stake in TikTok in 2020 when ByteDance was under pressure from the US to sell the app. The cloud computing giant now stores all US TikTok user data on Oracle data servers in the US under the new partnership, TikTok said.

Oracle declined to comment.

data security team

TikTok previously-stored its US user data in its own data centers in Virginia, with backup in Singapore. It will now remove US users' private data from its own data centers and rely entirely on Oracle's US servers, he said.

The centers in Virginia and Singapore are still used for data backup, the company said.

TikTok has also set up a special US data security team called "USDS" to act as custodians of US users' information and separate them from ByteDance, a company spokesman told Reuters.

Led by Andrew Bonillo, who was an executive in TikTok's global security division, the USDS currently reports to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, the spokesman said.

The company is discussing a structure where the team would operate autonomously and not be under TikTok's control or oversight, a source told Reuters.

Another senior executive at USDS is Will Farrell, who previously worked under Roland Cloutier, TikTok's chief security officer. The USDS team includes content moderators, engineers, and members of user and product operations.

ByteDance is one of the fastest-growing Chinese startups. It owns the country's leading news aggregator, Jinri Toutiao, as well as TikTok's Chinese counterpart, Douyin.

In June 2021, Biden withdrew Trump-era executive orders aimed at banning new WeChat and TikTok downloads. The Commerce Department is drafting new app data security rules that could potentially limit the use of US user data by foreign apps or even ban apps deemed to pose serious risks to humans.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said last year that the government is "very serious about protecting Americans' privacy," but criticized Trump's actions.

"Issuing an executive order that doesn't make sense on TikTok isn't the way to go," she said. Referral Link