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After the EU prohibited the app from being used on work devices, a company executive from TikTok said on Friday that the company is looking for a “partner” in Europe to ensure that user data is not sent to China.
The main issue for the EU is data protection as worries grow in the West about how much access Beijing may have to private user information from all over the world thanks to the short video sharing app.
Vice President of European Public Policy at TikTok, Theo Bertram, said the company wanted to reassure users following the bloc’s bans.
“As a company whose founder was Chinese, there are legitimate concerns that Western governments have about China. I believe we have a greater responsibility to show how we protect user data, Bertram told AFP.
In the past two weeks, the three major EU organizations have issued orders directing the removal of the Chinese-owned app from work-related smartphones and laptops.
Due to the “risk of spying,” Denmark’s parliament this week ordered all staff and members of parliament to remove the app from all mobile devices.
The app has already been blocked from government-owned devices in the US.
The Irish privacy regulator is also looking into whether ByteDance’s processing of children’s personal data and data transfers to China violated the GDPR, the EU’s data protection law.
With the Californian company Oracle, which stores the data of American users, TikTok is currently attempting to replicate a model it has in place in the United States.
Oracle has access to every piece of our source code. Without them passing, we can’t update,” Bertram said.
The $1.5 billion project with Oracle cost TikTok. “Oracle will also ship the update (so) the next TikTok app that you get will be sent to the app store by Oracle, not by TikTok,” Bertram said. If it is approved by US authorities.
He added that the app would also be the same one that could be downloaded in Europe.
“In Europe, we must follow suit if we are to successfully sway public opinion.
Without going into further detail, he said, “We’re working on three new data centers, and we will work with a partner as well.
In Europe, TikTok has 150 million users, 25 million of whom are in the UK. Over one billion people use it globally.
