But TikTok added that it would still store its own backups of that information, potentially complicating those efforts.
The app, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, said in a blog post that it expected to eventually delete American users’ “private data from our own data centers and fully pivot to Oracle cloud servers located” in the United States. It did not say when that would take place.
“For more than a year, we’ve been working with Oracle on several measures as part of our commercial relationship to better safeguard our app, systems and the security of U.S. user data,” Albert Calamug, who works for TikTok’s public policy division, said in the post.
The video app made its announcement before BuzzFeed News published an article detailing how TikTok employees felt it was difficult to successfully wall off its data from China. According to recordings the news outlet said it had obtained, TikTok employees said Chinese engineers had access to U.S. data as recently as this year.
“As we’ve publicly stated, we’ve brought in world-class internal and external security experts to help us strengthen our data security efforts,” TikTok said in a statement. The company added that it had created a unit in May, led from the United States, to “provide a greater level of focus and governance” on Americans’ data security.
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In 2020, President Donald Trump ordered ByteDance to sell TikTok over concerns it could expose the personal information of Americans to Beijing. While the White House was said to have reached a deal to sell part of the app to Oracle and others, it never came to fruition. The Biden administration has continued scrutinizing TikTok and other opportunities for Chinese companies to control U.S. data.
A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the Treasury Department, which is a member of the committee that vets foreign investment in the United States, declined to comment. Oracle also declined to comment.
