Short video service TikTok has launched a $1.5 billion Project Texas program to allay US politicians’ concerns about transferring US users’ personal data to China, but all those efforts may prove to be in vain . This publication reports Washington Post Reference to a former employee of the social network.
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According to the source, Project Texas has serious flaws: it showed the publication’s journalists code snippets indicating the connection of TikTok with the well-known news application Toutiao in China – both resources belong to the same company ByteDance. The Chinese structures thus retain the theoretical possibility of accessing the personal data of American users.
The informant also said he met and discussed the issue with members of the team of US Senators Chuck Grassley and Mark Warner – representatives of both politicians confirmed the fact of the meetings. Representatives of TikTok called the allegations against the platform unfounded, saying that the mention of Toutiao in the application code was a “technical relic”. The localization of US user data in the Oracle infrastructure eliminates Toutiao’s influence on the operation of the platform in the US, and the employee who disclosed this information worked at TikTok for only six months and left the company before Project Texas implemented was added representatives of the social network. In other words, that person may not know the whole picture.
Meanwhile, installing the TikTok app on devices has been banned by government agencies in the US, Canada and Europe. The US Senate is also preparing a bill that would give the White House the option of completely blocking the service in the US.
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