A former executive at Bytedance, the parent company of TikTok, has claimed the Chinese Communist Party had access to user data from the short-video app via a ‘superuser’ mechanism or “backdoor channel” that allowed them to view all data collected by the group, according to a report by The Guardian, which said officials were able to see user data of Hong Kong protesters and civil rights activists.
Yingtao Yu, a former engineering head at Bytedance’s US operation, claimed in a legal filing with a wrongful dismissal lawsuit lodged in a California court that a committee of CCP members in the tech company were able to access data stored by TikTok showing all users’ messages, search histories and content they viewed, plus SIM card details and IP addresses. TikTok’s chief executive Shou Zi Chew told a Congressional hearing in March that Chinese officials had no access to US user data and a company spokesperson denied Yu’s claims, it said.
Read the full report: The Guardian.
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