TikTok faces more data privacy concerns

Internal documents obtained by The New York Times show that employees of the Chinese-owned video app have been regularly sharing user information on a messaging and collaboration tool called Lark.

The documents reveal that personal data, including driver's licenses, addresses, photos, and even potentially illegal content, were accessible on the platform, which is used by thousands of ByteDance employees, including those based in China.

These findings shed light on TikTok's efforts to address security risks and its ties to China. TikTok has been under pressure to safeguard U.S. user data and has submitted plans to store American user information within the country.

TikTok stated that it is in the process of deleting U.S. user data collected before June 2022 and has moved data storage to U.S.-based servers owned by a third party. However, the company did not respond to questions regarding the storage of Lark data in China or the involvement of China-based employees in handling TikTok user data.