Australian TikTok users could be sharing private data with China: what every Aussie needs to know
Experts are calling for greater protections after TikTok revealed Aussie user data could be accessed in China. This is what you need to know.
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More than seven million Australians could be sharing personal information with Chinese officials after revelations data collected by the world’s fastest growing social network may not be as secure as promised.
The news comes just days after TikTok acknowledged Chinese engineers could access data about American users despite earlier denials.
But what information does TikTok have on its users, who can access it, and is there an Australian ban coming? This is what you need to know.
HOW CAN CHINESE TIKTOK EMPLOYEES ACCESS USER DATA?
The social media giant, which now boasts one billion active monthly users, has long come under scrutiny due to its Chinese ownership by parent company ByteDance.
In June, leaked recordings from more than 80 internal TikTok meetings fuelled new questions about its use of data, with a report revealing China-based employees “repeatedly accessed non-public data” about TikTok users.
The recordings, dubbed TikTok Tapes, indicated Chinese employees were able to access data from US TikTok users between September 2021 and January 2022.
In July, TikTok confirmed these findings in a letter to nine Republican senators, noting that engineers could only access data through “robust” controls.
DO CHINESE EMPLOYEES ACCESS AUSSIE DATA?
Australian Shadow Cybersecurity Minister James Paterson wrote to the company after the US revelations this month, asking if Australian data was accessible by “employees in mainland China”.
In a written response, TikTok confirmed Aussies’ information could be accessed by its China-based employees, though said there were “strict protocols” in place for its use.
TikTok chief security officer Roland Cloutier added the social network would “never give Australian user data to the Chinese government” and had never done so.
Mr Paterson said he had “no confidence (Australian data) remains outside the reach of the Chinese government” and called for regulatory action against the social network in Australia.
CAN THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT ACCESS THIS INFORMATION?
Experts say Chinese-owned firms, including TikTok, may have little choice but to share user data with the Chinese government by law.
The country’s National Intelligence Law, passed in 2017 and amended in 2018, requires all Chinese-owned firms to “support, assist, and co-operate with the state intelligence work”.
And another 2014 ruling, China’s Counter-Espionage Law, states organisations and individuals “shall provide (information) truthfully and may not refuse” after being instructed to collect “relevant evidence”.
Experts argue that companies such as Huawei and ByteDance would not legally be able to resist demands from the Chinese government.
HASN’T TIKTOK ADDRESSED SECURITY CONCERNS ALREADY?
Former US President Donald Trump led a charge to change TikTok’s ownership in 2020, even giving the company a 45-day deadline to sell its US business.
In an executive order, Mr Trump wrote “there is credible evidence that leads me to believe that ByteDance … might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States”.
Despite early interest from Microsoft, the demand to sell the Chinese firm was ultimately shelved in 2021 under the Biden administration.
ByteDance did move all traffic from its US users to Oracle servers, however, in a move confirmed in June 2022. The data is stored in the US, with a backup in Singapore.
“We still use our US and Singapore data centres for backup, but as we continue our work we expect to delete US users’ private data from our own data centres and fully pivot to Oracle cloud servers located in the US,” TikTok US security public policy spokesman Albert Calamug said.
WHAT INFORMATION DOES TIKTOK COLLECT FROM USERS?
TikTok collects a lot of information from its users.
The app itself asks for permission to a user’s calendar, camera, contact list, media, location, microphone and nearby devices.
It also records what videos users watch, what they rewatch, the videos they like and comment on, the keyboard and device they use, any private messages sent on the network, and information from linked social media accounts.
It also collects information shared when creating accounts, including phone numbers and birthdates, and in June 2020 was discovered snooping on what users saved in their iPhone’s cut-n-paste clipboard. TikTok said it removed this access in an update.
COULD TIKTOK BE BANNED IN AUSTRALIA?
Mr Paterson called for “action to protect” Australia’s TikTok users on Thursday, calling the app “a risk to Australians’ privacy”.
He did not specify what kind of action was required, however.
Australia has placed restrictions on Chinese companies before, banning Huawei’s involvement in construction of the country’s 5G network in 2018, for example.
And TikTok has been banned from use in other countries.
Notably, India banned accessed to TikTok along with 58 other Chinese apps in June 2020.
The short video app is also banned in Iran and Afghanistan, and was briefly banned in Pakistan.
Originally published as Australian TikTok users could be sharing private data with China: what every Aussie needs to know
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