According to the latest leaked audio recordings from TikTok company meetings, data from American users
BuzzFeed was the first to report the leak.News, which talked about audio recordings from more than 80 internal TikTok meetings in China. Specifically, BuzzFeed claims the records include 14 statements from nine employees who acknowledge that engineers had access to US user data for at least five months, from September 2021 to January 2022.
According to BuzzFeed, eight different employeesTikTok's American division said it did not receive permission to access the data and described situations where it had to turn to its Chinese counterparts for approval.
One of the employees of the trust and safety departmentTikTok allegedly admitted: “In China everyone sees.” In another recording, one TikTok data analyst allegedly told a colleague: "I receive instructions from the main office in Beijing."