Alex omenye
Over 30 TikTok employees attempting to enter the U.S. have encountered border stops and faced similar inquiries from Customs and Border Protection.
Many of these employees, predominantly Chinese nationals, hold positions within ByteDance and TikTok across various roles, including data engineering and machine learning, Forbes reported.
The CBP’s queries have centered on TikTok’s association with ByteDance and the companies’ extensive initiative, internally referred to as Project Texas, aimed at safeguarding the private information of American TikTok users from Chinese staff.
CBP agents have probed the employees about their access to data belonging to U.S. TikTok users, the location of the company’s U.S. data centers, and their involvement in Project Texas.
Additionally, employees have been questioned about personal matters such as their affiliation with the Chinese Communist Party, educational background, and political ties in China.
A reliable source informed Forbes that agents employ a dedicated, printed list of questions during the interrogations.
The interrogation of TikTok employees parallels an uptick in CBP questioning of Chinese students and academics, particularly those engaged in scientific fields, at U.S. borders.
This trend reflects heightened concerns regarding potential technological espionage originating from China. These students and researchers have also been subjected to inquiries regarding their academic pursuits and connections to the Chinese Communist Party.
TikTok’s endeavors to restrict access to American user data by employees based in China have been ongoing for years, notwithstanding the company’s repeated assurances regarding the security of such data.
In the summer of 2022, BuzzFeed News revealed that U.S. user data remained readily accessible to Chinese employees, raising apprehensions about potential government coercion to obtain it, even involuntarily. Subsequently, Forbes uncovered a plan by a China-based team to exploit the TikTok app for surveillance purposes on American citizens.
Following an internal investigation, the company confirmed that the team had tracked the locations of journalists, including the author of the report, in an attempt to identify their sources.
Despite these breaches, both TikTok and ByteDance have consistently maintained the security of U.S. user data. However, President Biden recently took a historic step by signing legislation that could potentially lead to a ban on TikTok, marking the first instance of the U.S. government prohibiting a major app or internet service.
The legislation mandates Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores within 270 days unless ByteDance divests its interests in the app’s U.S. operations by then or the courts intervene to block the law.
This measure was part of a $95 billion omnibus foreign aid package that includes military assistance to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
TikTok and ByteDance have vowed to contest the divestment bill in court.
