TikTok Accounts For Employees In China Can Access UK And European User Data

TikTok updated its privacy policy by notifying British and European users. (photo: dock. tiktok)

JAKARTA - TikTok updated its privacy policy by informing UK and European users that their data can be accessed by employees outside the country. This means that user data is not only stored locally.

TikTok's new privacy policy is linked to data accessibility which will roll out on December 2, and applies to users in the UK, the European Economic Zone, and Switzerland.

Delivered by TikTok's head of privacy in Europe, Elaine Fox said certain employees in the group of companies would be allowed to access user data because of their need for work.

However, Fox insists data accessibility will be subject to a strong set of security controls and approval standards, with methods recognized by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Eo.

Apart from China, other countries where European and UK user data can be accessed by TikTok staff include in Brazil, Canada, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Israel and the United States (US) and other countries.

TikTok currently stores European user data on servers in the US and Singapore. Meanwhile, according to Fox, the new privacy policy is focused on minimizing staff counts by accessing European user data, limiting data transfers outside the region, and saving local European user data.

Fox insists TikTok can use that data to check the functionality of platform recommendation algorithms, and to automatically identify malicious accounts.

"TikTok is trying to be open and transparent about how we collect and process our users' information," Fox said.

"We will continue to work to gain and build trust with our community with transparency-centric updates in our data practices and the investments we make on people, processes and technology to keep our community safe."

Pengakuan dari platform video pendek itu muncul di tengah meningkatnya pertanyaan tentang akses data pengguna di negara-negara termasuk AS, Inggris, dan lainnya serta kekhawatiran penyalahgunaannya oleh pemerintah China di bawah kepemimpinan ketatnya.

However, TikTok has repeatedly denied that their privacy policy is controlled by the Chinese government. This was quoted from BBC International, Friday, October 4.