(Reuters) – TikTok has halted a process to hire consultants who would help it implement a potential security deal with the United States, according to two people familiar with the matter, as opposition to such a deal among US officials grows.
TikTok, a short-video app owned by Chinese tech conglomerate ByteDance, has sought for three years to assure Washington that US citizens’ personal data is not accessible and that its content cannot be manipulated by the Chinese Communist Party or any other entity. under the influence of Beijing.
President Joe Biden in 2021 revoked an executive order by his predecessor Donald Trump to ban TikTok in the United States, but negotiations between his administration and the social media company have continued over a potential deal that would spare ByteDance from being forced to sell TikTok.
As part of these negotiations, TikTok put in place a program to assure the US government that it would abide by its security agreement.
The program involves the hiring of a third-party monitor, a source code inspector and three auditors, including one dedicated to cybersecurity and one to ensure that US user data on existing TikTok servers will be deleted after migration to Oracle Corp, according to two people familiar with the matter. These positions would be paid for by TikTok but would report to US government officials.
TikTok sent out requests for proposals for some of these roles in early December with the aim of proposing potential candidates for approval to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the security committee that reviewed ByteDance’s ownership of the popular social media app.
But in a setback for the deal, TikTok told consultants vying for some of those roles late last month that the hiring process was on hold and that it would let them know by the end of January that it would restart. , the sources said.
In its explanation to consultants for the move, TikTok cited “recent developments”, without giving further details, one of the sources said.
It is unclear which developments TikTok was referring to. His decision to suspend hiring came after he admitted in December that some of his employees had improperly accessed the TikTok user data of two journalists in an effort to identify the source of information leaks to the media.
The revelation unsettled some U.S. officials who favored a security deal with TikTok and bolstered the hand of Chinese hawks in the U.S. government calling on Biden to order ByteDance to divest the app, according to people familiar with the deliberations.
It is still unclear when the US government will make a decision on the future of TikTok.
A TikTok spokeswoman confirmed that the company has suspended the process of hiring third-party security vendors because CFIUS has not yet approved the security agreement. TikTok had hoped to have reached an agreement with the US government by now, the spokeswoman added.
The Treasury Department, which chairs CFIUS, and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
TikTok has already unveiled several measures to appease the US government, including an agreement for Oracle to store user data in the US and a US security division to oversee data protection and content moderation. He spent $1.5 billion on hiring and reorganization to build this unit.
Chris Griner, a security attorney with Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP who is not involved in TikTok’s negotiations, said TikTok’s misuse of journalists’ data undermines previous assurances to protect user information.
“We’ve done many exams before CFIUS over the decades – and confidence is an essential part of passing exams,” Griner told Reuters. “Once it’s gone, it’s extremely difficult to get it back.”
US lawmakers seeking to crack down on China as part of a broader set of disputes over trade, intellectual property and human rights have seized on security concerns over TikTok to pressure the White House to that she adopts a hard line.
Biden signed a spending bill last month banning federal employees — about 4 million — from using TikTok on government-issued devices, following similar bans by some states and local authorities.
(Reporting by Echo Wang in New York; Additional reporting by David Shepardson in Washington, DC; Editing by Greg Roumeliotis and Sam Holmes)
Copyright 2023 Thomson Reuters.
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