The Daily Populous Sunday May 19th, 2024 morning edition
Authored by theverge.com and submitted by Anchor_Aways

Canada’s security agency is trying to dissuade Canadians from using TikTok, telling users that their data is “available to the government of China.”

In an interview with CBC News set to air on Saturday, David Vigneault, the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said that “there is a very clear strategy on the part of the government of China … to be able to acquire … personal information from around the world,” the CBC reports.

“They’re using big data analytics, they have amazing computer farms crunching the data, they are developing artificial intelligence ... based on using this data,” Vigneault added.

The Chinese government’s ability to access user data is at the forefront of US efforts to regulate — and potentially even ban — the app. Congress passed a bill that would ban TikTok unless it divests from its Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, in April. TikTok sued the US government over the law in May, arguing that the looming ban is unconstitutional.

TikTok has previously claimed that staffers in China are unable to access US and European users’ data. The company has undertaken two massive corporate restructuring efforts — Project Texas and Project Clover, referring to the US and European endeavors, respectively — to silo off user data from China. US user data is hosted in Oracle’s cloud infrastructure and isn’t supposed to be accessible by anyone outside the US, though a recent report by Fortune suggests efforts to secure US user data have been “largely cosmetic.”

4x420 on May 18th, 2024 at 20:25 UTC »

Chinese companies have to agree to data sharing with their government. Its why google. youtube. facebook, whats app, twitter and instagram are barred in China.

Edit: to those mentioning Cloud act etc. one is your own country, with much more checks and balances and legal protections. One is a political, economic and military adversary. China also is funding Russia's war in Ukraine. China sees the west as an adversary

BranTheBaker902 on May 18th, 2024 at 20:24 UTC »

I stayed the hell away from it since the beginning

JonnyRocks on May 18th, 2024 at 20:01 UTC »

People don't care. The whole reason the United States is banning it because the goal of the chinese government is to gain access to more sensitive info using the tiktockers as a piggyback. Canada's government is aware of the risk but they hope askign nicely will work.