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| Tik Tok can enter into a data storage agreement with Oracle |
TikTok will reach an agreement with Oracle to store its user information in the US without making it inaccessible to Chinese parent company ByteDance, hoping to address US regulators' concerns about the data security of the popular short video app.
The deal comes a year and a half after the US National Security Council ordered ByteDance to shut down TikTok over concerns that US user data could be transferred to the Chinese Communist government.
The order was not implemented after Joe Biden replaced Donald Trump as US president last year. But the committee, known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, continues to raise concerns about data security on TikTok, which ByteDance now wants to address.
It is not clear whether CFIUS will determine that the partnership with Oracle can address its specific national security concerns.
Oracle considered acquiring a minority stake in the Chinese platform in 2020 as ByteDance faced pressure from the United States to sell the app.
The cloud computing giant will store all of the platform's US user data via Oracle's data servers as part of the proposed new partnership. Currently, some TikTok data is stored through Alphabet's Google Cloud service.
A dedicated data management team of hundreds of people will act as custodian of user information in the United States.
The team consists of engineers and cyber security personnel. The companies are discussing a structure in which the team operates independently and is not under TikTok's control or oversight.
The platform is also exploring partnerships with other technology companies around firewalls and cybersecurity measures.
TikTok wants to address Americans' concerns
A spokesperson for the platform said: “We will continue to invest in data security as part of our overall work to ensure the safety of users and their information.
Tik Tok is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world with over a billion active users worldwide.
Information about US users is currently stored in a data center in Virginia and backed up in Singapore.
The US is increasingly scrutinizing application developers' process of handling personal data, particularly when some of it is linked to US military or intelligence officials.
ByteDance is one of the fastest growing startups in China. It owns Jinri Toutiao, the country's leading news aggregator, and its Chinese counterpart Douyin.
The Commerce Department is studying new rules to address potential security risks from Chinese platforms and other foreign applications.
If the rules are passed, Chinese platforms may have to face third-party censorship. It can also force him to analyze source code and monitor user logs.