ByteDance accuses employees of spying on TikTok users
ByteDance has admitted that its employees have breached TikTok user data. The Chinese owner of the social network discovered in an investigation that two US journalists had suffered inappropriate access to their data.
Own goal for TikTok: Chinese parent company BydeDance has admitted that some employees had access to user data on the popular social platform.
Following an internal investigation ByteDance has discovered that four employees — two in the United States and two in China — have inappropriately obtained access to the data of some American users, including two journalists. The consequences were immediate: the Chinese company fired the responsible employees. TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter confirmed to CNN on Thursday.
TikTok is the most popular app in the world, used by two-thirds of teenagers in the United States. The news of the tracking comes as TikTok is already facing growing political backlash in the United States. Already the Trump administration , and now the Biden administration, fears the security problems for the data of US users on the social network given its ties to China.
TikTok, for its part, had already confirmed that some employees in China can access the data of US users . However, the company also clarified that a US-based security team decides who can access US user data from China.
But will this be enough to appease politics and the press?
All the details.
BYTEDANCE’S INTERNAL TIKTOK SURVEY
ByteDance has announced the firing of four employees for examining the data of two journalists in an attempt to find the source of the leak.
The access to the data stemmed from an internal ByteDance investigation launched over the summer to uncover the source of employee leaks to the press. In doing so, however, the members of the ByteDance internal audit team responsible for the investigation gained access to personal data from some journalists’ accounts, including IP addresses.
THE STOLEN DATA
Two staff members in the United States and two in China accessed the IP addresses and other personal data of Financial Times reporter Cristina Criddle to determine if she was in the vicinity of ByteDance employees, the company said. Personal data accessed from journalists’ accounts included IP addresses, according to the spokesperson. IP addresses can provide information about a user’s location.
THE CONSEQUENCES IN BYTEDANCE
ByteDance wasted no time: the company fired the employees involved, two based in the United States and two in China.
“The individuals involved abused their authority to gain access to TikTok user data,” Shou Chew, chief executive of the popular mobile video-sharing app, told employees in a memo viewed by Bloomberg . “I want to add that this misconduct is not at all representative of what I know to be our company’s principles,” Chew added in his statement. “I’m disappointed to hear that anyone, even a small subset of people, would have considered this acceptable.”
In response to the incident, TikTok said it restructured its risk and internal control teams. The company also removed access to US user data for those teams, according to the spokesperson.
But will these actions be enough to reassure American politicians?
THE STARS AND STRIPES SCREW
US lawmakers have long raised concerns about the security of user data and the ability of the company’s Chinese employees to access user information. And now they have had the proof.
Just last week, the US Senate unanimously passed a law prohibiting federal employees from downloading or using China’s TikTok app on government equipment amid growing national security concerns.
Now the provision must be approved by the House and signed by the US president. A similar law had passed the Senate in the previous legislature, but then stalled.
Not to mention that more than a dozen US state governors have banned state employees from using TikTok on state-owned devices.
THE CHALLENGE FOR BYTEDANCE
Finally, Chinese society is ready to roll up its sleeves.
“The public trust that we have spent tremendous effort building will be significantly undermined by some people’s misconduct,” ByteDance CEO Rubo Liang wrote to employees in a separate email viewed by Bloomberg . “We will work hard to restore the damage and continue striving to become a company trusted by the public.”
And Tik Tok chief Chew said the company has been working for the past 15 months to build TikTok US Data Security (USDS) to ensure the protected data of TikTok US users remains in the United States. “We are completing the migration of secure US user data management to the USDS department and have been systematically shutting down access points,” he wrote.
THE REACTIONS OF THE PRESS
But the Anglo-Saxon press is indignant and ready to see clearly.
“Spying on journalists, interfering with their work or intimidating their sources is completely unacceptable,” the Financial Times said in a statement. “We will investigate this story more thoroughly before deciding on our formal response.”
Forbes yesterday reported that ByteDance tracked down several Forbes reporters, including some who formerly worked at BuzzFeed “as part of a covert surveillance campaign” aimed at uncovering the source of the leaks. Randall Lane, chief content officer of Forbes, called it “a direct attack on the idea of a free press and its fundamental role in a functioning democracy”.
BuzzFeed News spokeswoman Lizzie Grams said the company was deeply disturbed by the report. The fact demonstrates “a blatant disregard for the privacy and rights of journalists and TikTok users”.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/bytedance-accusa-i-dipendenti-di-spionaggio-utenti-su-tiktok/ on Fri, 23 Dec 2022 10:58:09 +0000.