Shou Zi Chew, the CEO of , will testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 23rd. Chow will discuss the app’s privacy and data security measures, its impact on kids and ties to China (parent company ByteDance is headquartered in the country). This will be Chew’s first appearance in front of a congressional panel, the committee said. TikTok COO Vanessa Pappas from lawmakers in September.
“ByteDance-owned TikTok has knowingly allowed the ability for the Chinese Communist Party to access American user data,” committee chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers . “Americans deserve to know how these actions impact their privacy and data security, as well as what actions TikTok is taking to keep our kids safe from online and offline harms. We’ve made our concerns clear with TikTok. It is now time to continue the committee’s efforts to hold Big Tech accountable by bringing TikTok before the committee to provide complete and honest answers for people.”
Engadget has contacted TikTok for comment.
TikTok’s security and relationship with Chinese authorities have drawn the attention of US officials over the last few years. However, as notes, discussions between the US and TikTok appear to have stalled, as officials remain concerned about the possibility of China forcing it to hand over user data.
The company has tried to placate concerns from regulators and elected officials by on domestic Oracle servers and deleting such data from its own servers in the US and Singapore. Oracle has been TikTok’s algorithms and content moderation models for signs of Chinese interference.
Last month, TikTok (two each in China and the US) who accessed the data of several journalists. They were said to be looking for the sources of leaks to reporters.
Also in December, lawmakers . The legislation bans TikTok from federal government-owned devices. More than half of all states have on local government devices. Meanwhile, senators and members of Congress have to entirely.
News of Chew’s appearance before the panel comes on Data Privacy Day. , TikTok laid out some of its efforts to bolster user privacy, including a plan to set up a data center in Dublin this year to store UK and European Economic Area data.
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