ByteDance, the China-based parent company of TikTok, said on Thursday that an internal investigation found that employees had inappropriately obtained the data of U.S. TikTok users, including two reporters.
Over the summer, a few employees on a ByteDance team responsible for monitoring employee conduct tried to find the sources of suspected leaks of internal conversations and business documents to journalists. In doing so, the employees gained access the IP addresses and other data of two reporters and a small number of people connected to the reporters via their TikTok accounts. They were trying to determine if those individuals were in the same proximity of ByteDance employees, according to the company, which added that the efforts failed to find any leaks.
The investigation was initiated after an article was published by Forbes, and the inquiry confirms part of that report and acknowledges the privacy and security risks associated with TikTok that U.S. lawmakers, state governors and the Trump and Biden administrations have raised for more than two years.
[I’d bet that they’re minimizing what actually happens with US user data and device access, but this is bad enough. — Ed]
Join the conversation as a VIP Member