TikTok freezes hiring related to the security agreement with the US

TikTok halted the process of hiring consultants to help implement a potential security deal with USAaccording to two people familiar with the matter, due to rising opposition to the deal among US officials.

TikTok, a short video app owned by Chinese tech conglomerate ByteDance, has been trying to reassure Washington for the past three years that the personal data of US citizens cannot be accessed and their content cannot be manipulated by the government. Chinese Communist Party or any other entity under the influence of Beijing.

The president of the United States, Joe Biden, revoked in 2021 a decree of his predecessor Donald Trump to ban TikTok in the United States, but negotiations between his government and the social media company have continued over a possible deal that would prevent ByteDance from being forced to sell TikTok.

As part of these negotiations, TikTok has been putting together a program to assure the US government that it would honor its security agreement.

The program involves hiring an external monitor, a source code inspector, and three auditors, including one dedicated to cybersecurity and another to ensure that US user data on existing TikTok servers is removed after migration to Oracle. Corp., according to two people familiar with the matter. These posts would be paid for by TikTok but would report to US government officials.

TikTok sent out requests for proposals for some of these roles in early December with the goal of pitching potential candidates for approval to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the security panel that has been vetting ByteDance’s ownership of the popular social media app.

But in a setback for the deal, TikTok informed consultants vying for some of these roles late last month that the hiring process was on hold and that it would offer them an update in late January on whether it would restart, the sources said. .

In its explanation to consultants about the move, TikTok cited “recent developments” without elaborating, one of the sources said.

It is unclear which developments TikTok was referring to. Its decision to freeze the hiring came after it admitted in December that some of its employees improperly accessed the TikTok user data of two journalists in an attempt to identify the source of the information leaks to the media.

The revelation unsettled some US officials who supported a security deal with TikTok and strengthened the position of members of the US government who are calling on Biden to order ByteDance to divest from the app, according to people familiar with the deliberations.

It is unclear when the US government will make a decision on the future of TikTok.

A TikTok spokeswoman confirmed that the company had halted the process of contracting with third-party security vendors because CFIUS had not yet approved the security agreement. TikTok hoped to have reached an agreement with the US government by now, the spokeswoman added.

The Treasury Department, which chairs CFIUS, and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

blow to confidence

TikTok has already filed several measures aimed at appeasing Washington, including a deal for Oracle to store user data in the United States and a security division in the country to oversee data protection and content moderation. It has spent $1.5 billion on hiring and reorganization to build that unit.

Chris Griner, a security attorney with Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP, who is not involved in the TikTok negotiations, said TikTok’s misuse of journalists’ data undermined previous guarantees to protect journalists’ information. the users.

“We have done many reviews before CFIUS over the decades, and trust is a critical component in successful reviews,” Griner told Reuters. “Once it’s gone, it’s extremely difficult to get it back.”

US lawmakers seeking to crack down on China as part of a broader set of disputes over trade, intellectual property and human rights have seized on security concerns about TikTok to pressure the White House to take a hard line.

Biden signed into law a spending bill last month that bars federal employees, about 4 million in number, from using TikTok on government devices, following similar bans by some states and local authorities.