{"id":972,"date":"2022-10-22T01:17:40","date_gmt":"2022-10-22T01:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yareport.com\/?p=972"},"modified":"2022-10-22T01:19:25","modified_gmt":"2022-10-22T01:19:25","slug":"bytedance-denies-report-data-used-to-target-us-citizens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yareport.com\/index.php\/2022\/10\/22\/bytedance-denies-report-data-used-to-target-us-citizens\/","title":{"rendered":"ByteDance denies report data used to target US citizens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>ByteDance the parent company of TikTok has denied it is used to \u201ctarget\u201d US citizens following a report that its Chinese parent planned to track the location of people via the video sharing app. A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/emilybaker-white\/2022\/10\/20\/tiktok-bytedance-surveillance-american-user-data\/?sh=2623787a6c2d&amp;utm_campaign=socialflowForbesMainTwitter&amp;utm_source=ForbesMainTwitter&amp;utm_medium=social\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"report by Forbes\">report by Forbes<\/a> on Thursday claimed that, in at least two cases, a China based team at ByteDance, planned to collect TikTok data about the location of a US citizen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The alleged tracking of US citizens was to be carried out by ByteDance\u2019s internal audit and risk control team, which conducts investigations into misconduct by current and former ByteDance employees. However, Forbes said, the two unnamed Americans had never been employed by ByteDance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Forbes, citing undisclosed material it had viewed, said it was unclear whether the location data was ultimately collected from users devices. It said the material indicated that ByteDance did not intend the location information to be used for commercial purposes such as <strong>ad targeting<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>TikTok responded to the allegations on a <strong>corporate Twitter account<\/strong> overnight, saying <strong>it does not collect precise GPS location<\/strong> <strong>information<\/strong> from US users, As well as criticising the \u201cintegrity\u201d of Forbes\u2019s journalism, TikTok\u2019s response also said any use of internal audit resources as alleged by the article would be \u201cgrounds for immediate dismissal of company personnel\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">2\/ Specifically, Forbes chose not to include the portion of our statement that disproved the feasibility of its core allegation: TikTok does not collect precise GPS location information from US users, meaning TikTok could not monitor US users in the way the article suggested.<\/p>&mdash; TikTokComms (@TikTokComms) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TikTokComms\/status\/1583238908183465985?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 20, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>However, TikTok\u2019s own privacy policy states that the app may collect precise GPS location data from users, with their permission. It says: <strong>\u201cWe collect information about your approximate location, including location information based on your sim card and\/or IP address. With your permission, we may also collect precise location data (such as GPS).\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In July, a <a href=\"https:\/\/internet2-0.com\/whitepaper\/its-their-word-against-their-source-code-tiktok-report\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"report by Internet 2.0\">report by Internet 2.0<\/a>, claimed that the TikTok app on Android the operating system <strong>queries the device\u2019s GPS location at least once an hour<\/strong>. According to the analytics firm data.ai, there are 112 million TikTok iPhone and Android users in the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Forbes report has been published against a backdrop of political and regulatory concern about TikTok. In 2020, the then US president, Donald Trump, issued a series of <strong>executive orders including an effective ban on downloading the app<\/strong> and ordering the sale of its US arm, amid concerns over user data being accessed by the Chinese government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Those were rescinded by Joe Biden<\/strong>, who has replaced them with an order that directed the US commerce department to work with other agencies to produce recommendations to protect the data of people in the US from foreign adversaries. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which scrutinises business deals with non-US companies, is also conducting a security review of TikTok.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fears over the app\u2019s use of data reignited in June after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/article\/emilybakerwhite\/tiktok-tapes-us-user-data-china-bytedance-access\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"Buzzfeed claimed\">Buzzfeed claimed<\/a> that China based employees at ByteDance have accessed nonpublic data about US TikTok users, in a story based on leaked recordings of internal meetings. In one recording a member of TikTok\u2019s trust and safety department said \u201ceverything is seen in China\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the UK in August, a group of Conservative politicians successfully lobbied the Houses of Parliament to take down its TikTok channel, citing concerns over the transfer of data to China. In Ireland, the data watchdog, which regulates the app on behalf of the European Union has launched an investigation into \u201ctransfers by TikTok of personal data to China\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u201cTikTok can deny the inference of the Forbes article all they like, but it\u2019s down to trust, which is in short supply,\u201d<\/p><cite>Alan Woodward, a professor of cybersecurity at Surrey University in the UK said<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>A Forbes spokesperson said: \u201cWe are confident in our sourcing, and we stand by our reporting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ByteDance the parent company of TikTok has denied it is used to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yareport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yareport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yareport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yareport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yareport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=972"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/yareport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":975,"href":"https:\/\/yareport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972\/revisions\/975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yareport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yareport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yareport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yareport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}