The China-based ByteDance company is negotiating an agreement with the Biden administration that would "fully safeguard" the app in the United States and allay concerns about the Chinese government accessing Americans' data.
In an eight-page letter that TikTok officials sent to nine Republican senators, the chief executive of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, claimed the firm is close to reaching a final deal with the US government to ensure that its data-sharing policies do not pose a threat to US national security.
According to that agreement, the letter said, instead of using TikTok's own infrastructure, all US user traffic will be directed to servers run by California-based Oracle.
Moreover, TikTok soon intends to remove all American data from its servers and entirely rely on Oracle's storage, "with access limited only to authorized personnel, pursuant to protocols being developed with the US Government," according to Chew.
Chew confirmed to senators that data on the app can be accessed by ByteDance employees. The corporation first reportedly admitted that some employees had access to user data from the United States in 2020, but the letter provided additional information.
For instance, Chew noted that only a "narrow set of non-sensitive TikTok user data," such as public videos and comments made on them, are accessible to international staff. He said that none of that data was made available to Chinese government representatives and that ByteDance workers could only access American users' TikTok data after receiving permission from the US-based security team, reiterating the company's previous claims.
The letter indicated the system was designed to prevent any requests for data from Chinese authorities. Although TikTok has long maintained Beijing has never requested information about Americans using the platform, the potential has put the massively popular video app in the sights of Washington politicians.
Following a recent report describing the kind of access TikTok staff in China have to users' data, Republican senators raised fresh concerns about the app, which former President Donald Trump previously tried to ban on US soil.
TikTok continues to engage with the inter-agency Committee on Foreign Investment in the US on measures that would satisfy Washington, according to an NPR report. The committee is chaired by the Treasury Department and includes top officials from the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security.
TikTok is the first major global social media success to originate from China, with more than 1 billion active users worldwide.