The European Commission discussed with the CEO of the firm, Shou Zi Chew, the way in which the social network protects the data of its users, in full controversy with the prohibition of the US Congress.
Discussion With CEO TikTok
The European Commission discussed this Tuesday with the CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, the way in which the social network protects the privacy of its users, after the ban by the US Congress that legislators install the application on their official phones. and revelations that the Chinese company has spied on journalists.
The CEO of TikTok is in Brussels today where he will meet with European commissioners, specifically with the Vice President for the Digital Age, Margrethe Vestager, the Vice President for Values and Transparency, Vera Jourová, the Justice Commissioner, Didier Reynders, and the Commissioner for Inside, Ylva Johansson.
During their meeting this morning with Vestager, the two addressed issues relating to “the (EU) General Data Protection Regulation and privacy and data transfer obligations in relation to recent news of aggressive data collection and surveillance in the USA,” Brussels said in a statement after the meeting.
“There can be no doubt that user data in Europe is secure and not exposed to illegal access by authorities in third countries,” Jourová said after the meeting with Chew, referring to fears that the Chinese government can obtain information from European citizens.
Reynders informed the CEO that TikTok must pay “particular” attention to personal privacy “when the main audience of this network is children” and in this sense, asked Chew to cooperate with the investigation that the Irish data protection authorities are doing about the transfer of such information to China.
Vestager and Chew discussed the steps TikTok is taking to comply with recent antitrust and transparency laws on content control that the EU passed last year and will take effect sometime in 2023.
The meeting with the CEO of one of the social networks that has the most pull among young people occurred at a time when the US is intensifying its attack on TikTok, in which not only has Congress banned the application among its employees, Rather, 19 States have joined this blockade, alleging security reasons.
ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, confirmed two weeks ago that it used the social network to “monitor the physical location of journalists using their IP addresses”, as published in a Forbes report, which led the company to dismiss its chief auditor Chris Lepitak, as Chew explained today, according to information provided by Brussels.
Jourová thanked the head of TikTok that the social network has adhered to the code of good practice that Brussels has promoted among digital platforms to combat disinformation and that it has “quickly implemented European sanctions against Russian propaganda.”
In the same way, the Commissioner for Justice welcomed the fact that the company also cooperates with the code of good practices against hate speech and stressed that although TikTok has taken “positive” steps when it comes to eliminating this type of content, “there is room for improvement”, especially since in 2022 the pace slowed down.
The meetings with Chew come a month and a half after the Internal Market Commissioner, Thierry Breton, did so with the owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, whom Brussels has threatened with sanctions after temporarily suspending the accounts of journalists who reported on him, as well as his lack of clarity on how he intends to control the spread of false news on his social network.
Breton will meet with the CEO of TikTok on January 19, by videoconference, since he was unable to do so today because he was on an official visit to Spain.
This article is originally published on lainformacion.com
