President Donald Trump’s executive order banning Americans from using TikTok is prompted by concerns that the company could pass on user data to Chinese authorities. Recently hacked police documents reveal the nature of the company’s relationship with law enforcement – not in China, but in the United States.
TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is headquartered in Beijing, where the government censors social media content and maintains other forms of influence over tech companies. But a look at what TikTok is doing in the US underscores that issues with data privacy regarding China.
Documents published in the BlueLeaks trove, hacked by someone claiming affiliation with Anonymous and published by the Transparency Denial of Secrets transparency collective, show the information that TikTok shared with U.S. law enforcement in dozens of cases . Experts familiar with legislative applications say that what TikTok collects and delivers is not significantly more than what companies like Amazon, Facebook, or Google regularly supply, but that is because U.S. tech companies collect and transfer a lot of information.
The documents also revealed that two representatives with email addresses bytedance.com registered on the website of the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, a fusion center that covers the Silicon Valley area.
And they show that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security are actively monitoring TikTok for signs of unrest during George Floyd’s protests.
The number of subscriber requests for information that TikTok says it receives from law enforcement is significantly lower than what U.S. tech giants reported fielding, probably because police are more accustomed to using U.S. companies and apps data in investigations. TikTok cites its law enforcement applications in a two-year transparency report, the latter of which states that for the latter half of 2019, the company received 100 applications across 107 accounts. It provided information on in 82 percent of the cases. Facebook, however, says it received a whopping 51,121 requests in the same period, delivering at least some data in 88 percent of cases. A 2018 document found in BlueLeaks entitled “Law Enforcement Technology Investigations Resource Guide” gives police details on how to obtain records from Musical.ly, which was acquired by ByteDance and merged with TikTok that year.
Document: Law Change Technology Research Resource Guide
In the releases featured in BlueLeaks, TikTok provided multiple IP addresses, information about the devices used to sign up for accounts, mobile phone numbers, and unique IDs tied to platforms including Instagram, Facebook, or Google when the user logged in. with a social media account. (Business Insider first reported the details of what TikTok collects.)
It is unclear whether these data versions were in response to warrants, statements or other requests, and the company would not provide details, citing users’ privacy concerns. All social media platforms are legally required to comply with valid court orders requesting user information, but what they actually provide can vary widely, said Ángel Díaz, an expert on national security and technology at the Brennan Center for Justice. Companies also have the right to challenge user data requests in court – although they often do not.
The accounts for which TikTok transmitted data in the BlueLeaks dump range from influencers with tens of thousands of followers to people who primarily post to friends. One user contacted The Intercept said they were not aware that their information was being given to law enforcement. Díaz said that in certain emergencies, where moderators believe in good faith that there is a threat to someone’s life as a risk of serious physical harm, tech companies can voluntarily transfer information to the U.S. government without notifying the user. . TikTok restored access to the account after The Intercept asked the company to do so.
“We are committed to respecting the privacy and rights of our users as we comply with law enforcement requests,” said Jamie Favazza, spokesman for TikTok. “We carefully review valid law enforcement applications and require appropriate legal documents to produce information for a law enforcement request.”
TikTok has sought to distance itself from its Chinese origins, hire a former Disney executor as CEO, lobbyists keep busy with ties to the Trump campaign, and promise to add 10,000 positions in the United States. Some of that expansion apparently comes in the area of cooperation with authorities. TikTok recently sought a law enforcement specialization response and is currently recruiting a global project project manager. The team that oversees lawsuits is based in Los Angeles, Favazza said.
One satirical TikTok video even received a dedicated intelligence report.
The BlueLeaks documents also indicate that U.S. federal investigators and police – some of whom are even enthusiastic TikTok users – increasingly see the app as a useful tool. In the early days of George Floyd’s protests, lawmakers used TikTok, along with Facebook, Twitter, and other social media apps, to track protests and dissent.
An June 2 FBI report entitled “Civil Unrest May 2020 Situation Report” claimed that TikTok was among the apps used to promote violence. “Report nationwide that individuals use traditional social media platforms and encrypted messaging applications (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Telegram, Topbuzz.com, Snapchat, Wickr) to discuss potential acts of violence.” Instead of actual examples of physical violence, the document pointed to officers’ actions, “rumors of false activities”, and, cryptically, “false reports of violence to incite violence.”
Three days later, another FBI broadcast warned, “An identified user posted a video on TikTok showing which tab to pull to remove LEO / military body weapons quickly, saying ‘do with this information what you will.’ The post received significant traction. “
One satirical TikTok video even received a dedicated intelligence report, from DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis. On May 31, a 19-year-old TikTok user walking through the grip posted a video ripping of a tweetje that cabaret artist Jaboukie Young-White, a correspondent for “The Daily Show,” wrote after the National Guard was deployed to Minneapolis.
Young-White tweeted, “thank God they brought the army,” at a time when fears of deployment were running high. “I would be heartbroken if someone turned off a tank by filling water balloons with sticky liquids (esp a kind of sugar / milk / syrup combo) in a glass jar and threw it on the windshield, making it unusable for our troops. to support. ” In her video, weirdsappho covered some of the answers to the tweet, which expanded on the joke.
The DHS report reprized weirdsappho’s video, with the tweet and responses verbatimized, without explaining their source or providing context. The intelligence report carried the subject line “Social media video offers TTPs” – tactics, techniques and procedures – “on how to interfere with the U.S. National Guard at insurrection,” suggesting the teenager was a serious threat. The existence of the broadcast was first reported by the online news website Mainer.
In its executive order last week, Trump quoted concerns that TikTok’s ownership by ByteDance “could give the Chinese Communist Party access to personal and proprietary information of Americans.” TikTok’s track record, and ByteDance’s obligations under Chinese law, present unique security concerns. The Chinese state has invested significant resources in the use of artificial intelligence to control and manipulate public opinion, and ByteDance has been involved in that effort. ByteDance recently set up a joint venture with a Chinese state media group, raising the possibility that some of its technology could be used for propaganda purposes.
TikTok’s privacy policy states that the company may share user data with “a parent, subsidiary or other affiliate of our business group.” Several class action lawsuits have accused TikTok of sending data to China, although TikTok says the data of US users are stored in Virginia and backed up in Singapore. TikTok has also censored political speeches that are unfavorable by the Chinese government, including videos about the Hong Kong protests and the internment in inhumane camps in northwestern China by Uyghurs, an oppressed Muslim minority group. Internal documents previously obtained by The Intercept show that TikTok instructed moderators to suppress posts created by users who were considered poor, ugly, or disabled. It turned out that the guides were almost translated from Chinese.
“At a time when we are seeing attempts by the administration to draw a contrast in terms of values and ideology with China, these horrific parallels that keep coming back, really underpin this.”
“The common concern, whether we’re talking about TikTok or Huawei, is not necessarily the intentions of that company, but the framework within which it operates,” said Elsa Kania, an expert on Chinese technology at the Center for a New American Security. “You can criticize U.S. companies for having an opaque relationship with the U.S. government, but there is definitely a different character than the ecosystem.” At the same time, they added, the actions of the Trump administration, including a handling of Portland protests, reminiscent of the Hong Kong police attack, have come under official criticism from Chinese practitioners: ‘At one point we attempts by the administration to draw a contrast in terms of values and ideology with China, these sinister parallels that keep coming back, really undermine that. “
Last week’s executive order goes into effect 45 days after its release. Trump seems to favor ByteDance selling TikTok to a U.S. owner, with Microsoft the frontrunner. If that happens, some concerns about China’s data privacy could be eliminated. But the BlueLeaks documents highlight that without further restrictions in the United States on what companies can collect and pass on to researchers, there is reason to be concerned about any social media platform, American or Chinese.
