According to people familiar with the matter, TikTok is close to a deal with Oracle to store the information of its American users without giving its Chinese parent ByteDance access to it, in order to address concerns raised by a US national security panel about data integrity on the popular short video app.
The arrangement comes about a year and a half after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) ordered ByteDance to sell TikTok due to concerns that US user data may be handed on to China’s communist government.
That order was not implemented after Joe Biden succeeded Donald Trump as US President last year, but CFIUS has continued to have worries about TikTok’s data security, which ByteDance is now aiming to resolve, according to the sources.
According to the sources, it is unclear if CFIUS would conclude that TikTok’s agreement with Oracle will handle the national security risks it has identified. A representative for the US Department of Treasury, which heads CFIUS, did not reply quickly to a request for comment.
When ByteDance was under US pressure to sell the app, Oracle contemplated acquiring a minority share in TikTok in 2020.
TikTok is one of the most popular social networking applications in the world, with over 1 billion active users worldwide. US customers’ data is now housed at TikTok data facilities in Virginia, with a backup in Singapore.
The US is aggressively scrutinising app developers for the personal data they manage, particularly if it includes US military or intelligence employees.
Beijing Kunlun Tech, a Chinese game business, was compelled to sell its famous gay dating app Grindr in 2020 after CFIUS contacted it with national security concerns.
ByteDance is one of China’s most rapidly expanding startups. It owns Jinri Toutiao, the country’s top news aggregator, as well as TikTok’s Chinese competitor Douyin.
