Immigration officers have interrogated greater than 30 TikTok staff who traveled to the US, Forbes reports. Some employees at TikTok and its China-based guardian firm, ByteDance, have been pulled apart by Customs and Border Safety (CBP) and held for added questioning, in keeping with the report. Most of the employees who’ve been singled out are Chinese language nationals.
A number of the individuals who have been interrogated work in machine studying or information engineering. CBP brokers have requested them about their entry to US customers’ TikTok information. The employees have additionally been requested in regards to the location of TikTok’s US-based information facilities and their very own particular person involvement with Project Texas, an enormous company restructuring challenge designed to wall off US person information from ByteDance’s employees in China.
CBP’s questioning has additionally veered into extra private territory. In keeping with Forbes, TikTok staff have been requested whether or not they’re members of the Chinese language Communist Occasion and have additionally been requested to supply details about their education and political connections in China. A supply advised Forbes that CBP brokers have a “devoted, printed checklist of questions” they use to interrogate TikTok and ByteDance employees.
TikTok CEO Shou Chew has been subjected to related questioning. Throughout a congressional hearing in January, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) repeatedly requested Chew — who’s Singaporean — whether or not he was a member of the Chinese language Communist Occasion.
In a number of congressional testimonies, Chew has harassed that US customers’ information is saved in the US and isn’t accessible by ByteDance staff in China. The hassle to fully wall off US person information started in 2022 below Mission Texas, which TikTok has described as an “unprecedented initiative devoted to creating each American on TikTok really feel protected, with confidence that their information is safe and the platform is free from outdoors affect.” However several reports, together with one revealed by Fortune earlier this month, recommend that Mission Texas hasn’t completely restricted ByteDance’s entry to US customers’ information.
As Forbes notes, the Committee on International Funding in the US — which incorporates the pinnacle of the Division of Homeland Safety, which oversees CBP — has been investigating ByteDance since 2019. In 2023, the committee really helpful that the US ban TikTok except ByteDance sells the app. Final week, President Joe Biden signed a international support package deal that features legislation that would ban TikTok except ByteDance divests from it inside the 12 months.
CBP and TikTok didn’t reply to The Verge’s requests for remark.