TikTok moves to better secure US data

TikTok has moved to allay concerns regarding the Chinese government's access to American's data, National Public Radio reports. In a letter sent to nine Republican senators, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew noted that the company is close to finalizing a deal with the Biden administration that involves the use of Oracle servers for all U.S. traffic instead of TikTok's proprietary infrastructure, which would eventually lead to the deletion of all U.S. data on its servers. Such concerns arose after TikTok admitted that U.S. user data could be accessed by some Chinese employees, with the letter detailing that access was only for "non-sensitive" data, such as public videos and comments, and that such information was not shared with Chinese government officials. The letter comes after Apple and Google have been urged by Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr to prohibit TikTok in their respective app stores. "In fact, they came out and said that, well, of course, some of the data is accessed there. But it's only on an as-needed basis. And the definition of 'as needed' when it comes to entities beholden to the [Chinese Communist Party] is very, very different than, I think, what you or I would conceive of in terms of 'as needed," Carr said.