For all of its dances, trends and skits, TikTok isn’t seen in the best light by US lawmakers given its parent company’s alleged ties to the Chinese government.
The most recent allegations levelled against the short video sharing app accuse it of harvesting sensitive data and funnelling that data to Beijing where it is accessed.
As such, TikTok is in the process of moving its data to US-based Oracle servers where the data of US citizens will be stored. Oddly, this is being accompanied by the resignation of global chief security officer Roland Cloutier.
“With our recent announcement about data management changes in the US, it’s time for me to transition from my role as Global Chief Security Officer into a strategic advisory role focusing on the business impact of security and trust programs, working directly with Shou, Dingkun and other senior leaders,” Cloutier said in a press release.
The resignation is effective from 2nd September and Kim Albarella will serve as interim head of TikTok’s global security organisation.
“We are confident in Kim’s deep understanding of security issues, combined with her more than 20 years of leadership and communications experience, and we are grateful to her for taking on this role,” ByteDance chief executive officer Shou Zi Chew and vice president of technology at ByteDance, Dingkun Hong said in a joint statement.
It will be interesting to see if this change up will help to allay fears that TikTok is a security risk in the US. A report from BuzzFeed in June revealed that TikTok engineers in China had unfettered access to US user data. This is despite sworn testimony from a TikTok executive that its US security team would make the call on where data would be sent.
It remains to be seen whether this shift in leadership will lead to US user data being more secure, but we have to think that TikTok must be seen as doing something more than just moving servers.
With that having been said, we are doubtful that this is the last time we’ll hear about the fear US lawmakers have of TikTok.
