A recent report of Chinese app TikTok's parent ByteDance planning to monitor the locations of some specific Americans has triggered shockwaves.
The Chinese firm's internal audit and risk control department led by Beijing-based Song Ye conducts probes into potential misconduct by former and current company employees. But it has surfaced that the team also planned to collect TikTok data about the location of an American citizen who never had an employment relationship with the firm, Forbes reported.
It is not known whether the data from the American citizens was collected, but the plan was to obtain locations from the US users' devices.
A spokesperson from TikTok told the website that the app collects approximate location data from the users' IP addresses to help show relevant content and ads to users, detect and prevent fraud behaviour. But it has come to the light that ByteDance team was planning to use the location data for surveillance on individual American citizens and not show any targets or any other purpose.
However, the Forbes website opted not to detail the nature and purpose of surveillance planned on the US citizens to protect its sources. Even TikTok and its parent refused to answer any questions whether the team targeted any members of the Biden administration, activists, journalists or other public figures.
This comes at a time when the Chinese video app is close to signing a contract with the US Treasury Department's panel on foreign investment in the US. This panel evaluates the national security risks posed by the foreign companies. It has been probing if the video app's Chinese ownership could enable the Jinping regime to access personal information about the TikTok users in the US.
In September, Biden had signed an executive order listing the specific risk that this panel should consider while assessing foreign companies. The order stated it intends to emphasise the risks by ‘foreign adversaries’ access to data of United States citizens. The US Treasury Department did not respond to Forbes for a comment.
A ByteDance spokesperson said the company has an internal audit responsible for ‘objectively’ auditing and evaluating the employees' adherence to code of conduct.