After nearly two years of confusion and disputes between companies and nations, TikTok has finally begun routing the data of its U.S. users to the Oracle Cloud, under the control of the American tech corporation. But for some, the efforts may be too little, too late. Despite Oracle claiming that 100% of U.S. user data is now being stored on its cloud infrastructure, some reports have hinted that China still has access—and has used it.
According to a report from BuzzFeed News, leaked audio from more than 80 internal meetings indicates that China-based employees of ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, have repeatedly accessed nonpublic data from U.S. users of the popular video-sharing app. Now, at least one member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is pushing Apple and Google to pull the platform from their app stores, citing an “unacceptable national security risk.”
TikTok and ByteDance have faced years of criticism and drawn the ire of multiple leaders for its loose handling of U.S. user data, which some claim is being improperly used by the Chinese government. After neglecting to sell its American business side to one of several suitors, the company instead entered an agreement to use Oracle as its exclusive U.S. “technology partner.”
