VIDEO: Cornyn Grills TikTok CEO on Child Usage, U.S.-China Data Sharing
CORNYN: According to the Journal, employees under the Project Texas say that U.S. user data… continued to be shared with ByteDance staff, again, owned by a Chinese company.
Are you going to conduct any sort of investigation to see whether there's any truth to the allegations made in the article, or are you just going to dismiss them outright?
CHEW: No system that any one of us can build is perfect, but what we need to do is to make sure that we are always improving it and testing it.
WASHINGTON – Today in the Senate Judiciary Committee, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) questioned TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew on the difference in access to the app for children under 13 years old in the U.S. and other countries and grilled him on reports that the company and its U.S.-based unit, Project Texas, is sharing data with its Chinese parent company, ByteDance. Excerpts are below, and video can be found here.
On TikTok’s Child Permissions Double Standard:
CORNYN: “You reside in Singapore with your family, correct?”
CHEW: “Yes. I reside in Singapore and I work here in the United States as well.”
CORNYN: “And do your children have access to TikTok in Singapore?”
CHEW: “If they lived in the United States, I would give them access to our ‘under-13’ experience. My children are below the age of 13.”
CORNYN: “My question is: In Singapore, do they have access to TikTok or is that restricted by domestic law?”
CHEW: “We do not have an ‘under-13’ experience in Singapore. We have that in the United States.”
On Sharing Americans’ Data with ByteDance:
CORNYN: “A Wall Street Journal article published yesterday directly contradicts what your company has stated publicly. According to the Journal, employees under the Project Texas say that U.S. user data, including user emails, birth date, IP addresses, continued to be shared with ByteDance staff, again, owned by a Chinese company.”
“Are you going to conduct any sort of investigation to see whether there’s any truth to the allegations made in the article, or are you just going to dismiss them outright?”
CHEW: “We’re not going to dismiss them. So we have ongoing security inspections not only by our own personnel but also by third parties to ensure that the system is rigorous and robust. No system that any one of us can build is perfect, but what we need to do is to make sure that we are always improving it and testing it against that people who may try to bypass it. And if anyone breaks our policies within our organization, we will take disciplinary action against them.”