UK Edition
TikTok is courting Britain’s most senior cyber security agency in a bid to reassure MPs it is not a national security threat.
Representatives from TikTok have held what it considers to be productive discussions with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), an arm of GCHQ. The engagement comes as the Chinese-owned social media app fights global attempts to ban it over security fears.
NCSC is understood to be reviewing the app, though a government source stressed TikTok had not yet been given a clean bill of health by spooks.
TikTok executives have raised its engagement with the agency as a sign that the company does not pose a threat.
The US, EU and Canada have all banned government employees from installing TikTok on their devices, putting pressure on Britain to follow suit. US politicians are pushing to give Joe Biden the power to ban the app.
Westminster policy advisors and lobbying groups were hosted at TikTok’s London offices on Monday as the Chinese app launched a charm offensive aimed at preventing a crackdown in Britain.
TikTok’s US general counsel Erich Andersen, government relations managers Liz Kanter and Giles Derrington, and head of European privacy Elaine Fox welcomed people to the company’s London offices on Monday, where they disclosed discussions with the NCSC.
The short form video app is battling claims that it could be exploited by the Chinese government to extract data on Western citizens and politicians, or be used to influence public opinion. On Tuesday, China announced plans to overhaul its tech ministry and create a department to oversee China’s use of data.
As it stands, TikTok's privacy policy says European and UK data can in some cases be accessed by staff in China.
TikTok insists it does not cooperate with the Chinese government and has taken steps to safeguard user data in the West.
However, the company has told Westminster insiders that British users’ personal data will continue to be held offshore.
Data from the UK will be stored in Ireland and British information will be “treated as part of Europe”, one person said, even as the UK develops increasingly divergent data laws.
TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, has laid out a scheme labelled “Project Clover” that will see it open new data storage centres in Europe that are subject to independent audits.
The company already has a facility in Ireland and has promised to open a second data centre in the country, with a third planned for an undisclosed European location.
TikTok told officials on Monday that this would not be in the UK, despite Britain being the app’s biggest market in Europe and operating under a different privacy regime than the EU post-Brexit.
A UK facility has been ruled out despite the fact TikTok is opening a US data centre to address security concerns from the White House. EU officials have also pushed for European data to be stored within the bloc.
In the US, TikTok has agreed to have data managed locally by the IT giant Oracle. The company has said all European users’ information will be stored in European data centres.
The decision not to build a centre in Britain contrasts with efforts by Huawei, the Chinese telecoms company, which opened a cyber security centre in the UK that provided spies from GCHQ deep access to its hardware and code.
A spokesman for the NCSC declined to comment.
In Washington DC, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers today introduced legislation that would give the White House the authority to review and potentially ban or force a sale of TikTok on national security grounds if passed into law.
The bill would give Mr Biden the ability to force the sale of foreign-owned technologies, applications, software or e-commerce platforms if they present a national security threat to US users.
The legislation is sponsored by Mark Warner, Democrat and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman, and John Thune, the number two Republican in the Senate.
"We need a comprehensive, risk-based approach that proactively tackles sources of potentially dangerous technology before they gain a foothold in America, so we aren't playing Whac-A-Mole and scrambling to catch up once they're already ubiquitous," Mr Warner told members of Congress.
Senior Conservative MPs have been urging the Government to block TikTok from official phones. No10 still has an account and ministers including Grant Shapps make use of the app.
The social media company is expected to announce further details of its plans to keep European user data secure in the coming days.
A TikTok spokesman said: “We have been pursuing a strategy of data sovereignty in Europe for some time now and we will be announcing further details on the industry-leading data security measures we will be implementing in Europe in the coming days.”