Australian Senator James Paterson has written to the local boss of Chinese-owned TikTok following reports that the music app’s data was being accessed in mainland China.
The senator cited comments from TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew claiming that “China-based employees, can have access to TikTok U.S. user data …” in his correspondence to the U.S. Senate.
In Paterson’s letter to Lee Hunter, the Australian general manager of the app, the senator asked for clarification on whether local user data was accessible to TikTok (and ByteDance) staff in mainland China and how the company could protect the data if the Chinese Communist Party made a direct request for access—which it can under its controversial 2017 National Intelligence Law….