TikTok’s parent company, China-based ByteDance, said Thursday that a small group of employees inappropriately obtained personal data from American TikTok users and are no longer employed by ByteDance. He New York Times reported that some of the users whose data was accessed included two journalists, one at BuzzFeed News and one at the Financial Times.
The information came to light after an internal investigation by an outside law firm, ByteDance general counsel Erich Andersen said in an email to company employees seen by the Times. Not long after the report, Forbes posted a story alleging that ByteDance also tracked its reporters, three of whom previously worked at BuzzFeed News.
Four ByteDance employees, two in the US and two in China, were reportedly responsible for the security breach, which was aimed at finding the sources of suspected media leaks. They have all been fired.
In response to a query from BuzzFeed News, a TikTok spokesperson said: “The misconduct of certain individuals, no longer employed by ByteDance, was an egregious abuse of their authority to gain access to user data. This bad behavior is unacceptable and inconsistent with our efforts at TikTok to earn the trust of our users. We take data security incredibly seriously and will continue to improve our access protocols, which have already been significantly improved and strengthened since this incident occurred.”
A ByteDance spokesperson condemned the employees’ actions, which “seriously violated the company’s Code of Conduct.” The spokesperson added: “We have taken disciplinary action and none of the people found to have been directly involved in or overseen the wrong plan are still working at ByteDance.”
The company’s chief executive, Rubo Liang, addressed the findings of the internal report in an email to employees on Thursday. “I was deeply disappointed when I was notified of the situation… and I’m sure you feel the same way,” Liang wrote, as reported by the Times. “The public trust that we have invested great effort in building will be significantly undermined by the misconduct of some people.”
BuzzFeed News reported on security concerns surrounding TikTok over the past year. In June, BuzzFeed News broke the news that non-public data on US TikTok users had been repeatedly accessed from China. The report was based on audio, obtained by BuzzFeed News, of more than 80 internal ByteDance meetings.
“We are deeply disturbed by a report that ByteDance employees accessed the personal user data of a BuzzFeed News reporter, which shows a flagrant disregard for the privacy and rights of journalists, as well as TikTok users. ,” BuzzFeed News spokeswoman Lizzie Grams said Thursday. “It is even more concerning that this comes in the wake of a series of BuzzFeed News reports that exposed major problems within its parent company, from employees accessing US user data from China to ByteDance’s attempts to send pro-China messages to Americans.”
A spokesman for the Financial Times said: “It is completely unacceptable to spy on reporters, interfere with their work or intimidate their sources. We will investigate this story further before deciding on our formal response.”
