Popular video app TikTok’s letter to U.S. lawmakers stressing that China have no control over it remained failed to convince Senator Josh Hawley, who was chairing a hearing on Tuesday on the security of personal data of U.S. citizens.
TikTok is a subsidiary of China-based company ByteDance Ltd, and in its letter to lawmakers, which was seen by Reuters, said that it had give the assignment of analyzing company’s data security practice to a U.S.-based auditing firm.
At a hearing of a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Hawley appreciated TikTok’s claim of not storing data of American users in China, but said that transferring that data to the hands of Chinese government will just take a single knock by a Communist Party official on the door of TikTok’s parent company that is based in China.
Reuters last reported that Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States or CFIUS had started a review of TikTok concerning national security.
The letter signed by Vanessa Pappas, TikTok’s General Manager for the United States, said the company stores all personal data of American users in the United States and have Singapore as its backup in case of any emergency.
Letter also said that the company is also intending forming a committee comprises of outside experts to advise it on modernization of content and its transparency, and added that political advertisements will not be accepted by the company.
Hawley not only considered the company as a threat to national security of the country, but also the demanded that executives from few years old TikTok should have to testify before the committee under oath, any of which have not attended the hearing on Monday.
The main point of focus of the national security review was the acquisition of U.S. social media app Musical.ly by the TikTok’s parent company Beijing ByteDance Technology Co, which bought Musical.ly two years ago for $1 billion.
