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TikTok announced that it had started routing American users' data to US-based servers owned by Oracle. The decision addresses a concern from US officials that the social media company's Chinese ties could pose national security risks. The company will put in place new controls that restrict access to US user data. TikTok employees reportedly mentioned having to ask their colleagues in China to access US user data, as they weren't able to access this data themselves.
U.S. officials have for years expressed concern that TikTok might let China's authoritarian government have access to the data the firm collects from Americans and users from other nations. TikTok's backups of US user data continue to be held on TikTok's proprietary servers in Virginia and Singapore for now, TikTok said, but those will eventually be deleted as part of the ongoing switch to Oracle. TikTok did not provide a timeframe for the planned deletion.
Oracle had discussed acquiring a minority stake in TikTok in 2020 when ByteDance was under U.S. pressure to sell the app. The cloud computing giant will store all of TikTok's US user data on Oracle data servers. This partnership agreement will also establish a team of engineers and cybersecurity experts based in the US that will be responsible for managing and shielding this data from ByteDance. Some of TikTok's data is currently stored on Alphabet Inc's Google Cloud. It's also possible that TikTok will not have any oversight or control over this team.
This initiative, which refers to the Texas-based headquarters of Oracle, is supposed to guard US users' data in Oracles servers, barring access from the China-based ByteDance. It looks like some form of this deal is underway now, as TikTok has announced its transition to Oracle's servers. The deal got blessings from Trump, but the transaction did not materialize during his tenure.
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