ByteDance, TikTok's parent company accused of spying on users' data

The accusation comes amid reports by Forbes detailing how the China-based company planned to use the TikTok app to spy on some specific US citizens and also obtain their personal locations.

Forbes further went ahead to expose the team behind the alleged spy as ByteDance’s Internal Audit and Risk Control department led by Beijing-based executive Song Ye, who reports directly to the company's co-founder and CEO. 

While reacting to the accusations, ByteDance, via its Twitter handle had accused Forbes of publishing content “lacking in journalistic integrity”. TikTok further stressed the company does not collect precise GPS location information from US users thus debunking Forbes's accusations of monitoring US users.

While noting that the app has never been used to "target" any members of the U.S. government, activists, public figures or journalists, TikTok noted that the illegal use of internal audit resources by staff as alleged by Forbes would be grounds for immediate dismissal of company personnel.

Forbes article described Tiktok's mode of operation as using its Internal Audit team to target the location of US citizens without any employment history with TikTok.

Prior to this incident, there have been concerns by the US about the user data of its citizens who use the app.

A few months ago, another report by Buzzfeed also accused TikTok of having access to nonpublic data of American citizens.

In a quick follow-up, Nine Republican senators had written to TikTok and soon after, a Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sent a request that TikTok should be kicked out of the Apple and Google app stores.

The recent development further questions TikTok’s professional integrity as users continue questioning the safety of their private data in the company’s custody.

TikTok is currently the world's fastest-growing social media app with over 3.9 billion downloads.