Well-liked short-form video-sharing service TikTok is revising its privateness coverage for European customers to make it explicitly clear that consumer knowledge will be accessed by some workers from internationally, together with China.
The ByteDance-owned platform, which at the moment shops European consumer knowledge within the U.S. and Singapore, stated the revision is a part of its ongoing knowledge governance efforts to restrict worker entry to customers within the area, reduce knowledge flows exterior of it, and retailer the knowledge domestically.
The privateness coverage replace applies to customers situated within the U.Ok., the European Financial Space (EEA), and Switzerland, and goes into impact on December 2, 2022, in line with The Guardian.
“Based mostly on a demonstrated must do their job, topic to a sequence of sturdy safety controls and approval protocols, and by means of strategies which can be recognised beneath the GDPR, we enable sure workers inside our company group situated in Brazil, Canada, China, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, and the U.S. distant entry to TikTok European consumer knowledge,” the corporate stated.
TikTok additional stated its safety controls encompass system entry restrictions, encryption, and community safety, including it does not gather exact location data from its customers in Europe.
The event additionally takes place towards mounting regulatory scrutiny of the platform on each side of the Atlantic, which has over one billion month-to-month energetic customers. ByteDance has repeatedly denied it’s managed by the Chinese language authorities.
In July 2022, it hit the brakes on a controversial privateness coverage replace in Europe that would have allowed it to serve focused advertisements based mostly on customers’ exercise on the social video platform with out their specific consent.
It has additionally confronted tough climate within the U.S., what with Brendan Carr, a Republican member of the Federal Communications Fee (FCC), calling for a ban of the appliance over nationwide safety considerations that consumer knowledge may very well be accessed by Chinese language authorities.
Final month, the corporate contested a report from Forbes {that a} China-based staff at ByteDance deliberate to make use of the platform to trace the areas of choose U.S. residents with out their data or permission.
