ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON: Prior to appearing before a panel of US Congress, TikTok’s chief executive has said in a written testimony that the Chinese-based short video app has never and would never share United States user data with the Chinese government. TikTok has more than 150 million users in America.
“TikTok has never shared, and received a request to share, United States user data with the Chinese government. Nor would TikTok app honour such a request if one were ever made,” CEO Shou Zi Chew said on Thursday, according to written testimony posted by the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday.
Chew said TikTok’s parent company ByteDance was not owned or controlled by any government or a state entity. “Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not the agent of China and any other country,” Chew says in the testimony.
TikTok’s critics fear that its US user data could be passed on to the Chinese government, prompting growing calls to ban it by US lawmakers.
Last week, TikTok said that the Biden administration demanded that its Chinese owners divest their stake in the app, or it could face a US ban.
Chew’s testimony said, “Bans are appropriate when there are no alternatives. But we do have an alternative.”
TikTok chief’s testimony before Congress
TikTok chief’s testimony before Congress on Thursday comes in the face of growing calls to restrict the app across the US.
TikTok said it had spent more than 1.5 billion dollars on rigorous data security efforts under “Project Texas” and tried convincing lawmakers and the Biden government to support the plan.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, a powerful national security body, had unanimously recommended in 2020 that ByteDance divest the TikTok app.
Under pressure from former president Donald Trump, ByteDance in late 2020 unsuccessfully sought to finalise a deal with Walmart and Oracle to shift TikTok’s US assets into a new entity. DonaldTrump then lost court battles seeking to ban TikTok.
