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☆ Canada bans China’s Wechat from government devices citing security risks
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-31 | by ( Juliana Liu | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

Hong Kong CNN —Canada has banned Chinese super-app WeChat on official government devices citing cybersecurity risks, following similar action taken against short-form video app TikTok earlier this year. CNN has reached out to Tencent, the owner of Wechat, and Kaspersky Lab for comment. In February, the Canadian government banned TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, from government-issued mobile devices in light of cybersecurity concerns. Relative to TikTok, Wechat has been a less prominent target of global governments over the past year in part because it is much more popular among Chinese speakers. In August 2020, then-US President Donald Trump tried to ban Wechat along with TikTok by issuing executive orders.

Persons: Yintao Yu, Wechat, Donald Trump, Joe Biden Organizations: Hong Kong CNN —, Kaspersky, Treasury Board of Canada, CNN, Facebook, Twitter, PayPal, Chinese Communist Party, Trump Locations: Hong Kong, Hong Kong CNN — Canada, Russian, China, Beijing, California

☆ Analysis: There is now some public evidence that China viewed TikTok data
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Multiple security experts told CNN that this appears to be the first reported instance of the CCP accessing actual TikTok user data. TikTok announced its withdrawal from Hong Kong in 2020 after China imposed a national security law there. There have been isolated reports of improper access to TikTok data in the past. The improper access, company officials have said, was a misguided attempt at identifying the source of leaks to the press. TikTok has also said it is implementing a plan to store US user data on third-party US-based servers, with access to that data controlled by US employees.

Persons: Yintao Yu, Yu, ByteDance, —, ” Yu, ’, Yu’s, Flipagram, “, TikTok, James Lewis, John Scott, Rob Joyce, ” Joyce, ”, Shou Chew, Chew Organizations: CNN, Chinese Communist Party, Hong Kong, Wall Street, Flipagram, CCP, Center for Strategic, International Studies, University of Toronto’s, National Security Locations: TikTok’s Beijing, Hong Kong, California, Beijing, Hong, China

☆ Former exec at TikTok's parent company says Communist Party members had a 'god credential' that let them access Americans' data
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( Zen Soo | Associated Press | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Yintao Yu said Communist Party members accessed data on US users as well as protesters in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a semi-autonomous region in China with its own government. Some American lawmakers have expressed concern that TikTok's ties to ByteDance means the data it holds is subject to Chinese law. It was also available in Hong Kong until TikTok pulled out of the market in 2020 following the imposition of a sweeping national security law. Anyone who tries to open TikTok from within Hong Kong will see a message that reads "We regret to inform you that we have discontinued operating TikTok in Hong Kong."

Persons: Yintao Yu, ByteDance, —, Yu, Charles Jung, Jung, Shou Zi Chew, Chew, TikTok Organizations: Communist Party, ByteDance, San Francisco Superior, British, Hong, Flipagram, Oracle, Chinese Communist Party, Communist Locations: Hong Kong, HONG KONG, U.S, China, Beijing

☆ An explosive new lawsuit claims TikTok's owner built a 'backdoor' the CCP could exploit
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Dan Whateley | Ashley Rodriguez | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

ByteDance allowed a Chinese Communist Party unit to censor content and access data, a new lawsuit alleges. ByteDance built a "backdoor channel" to enable CCP access to US user data, the suit alleges. An explosive new lawsuit claims TikTok owner ByteDance built a "backdoor channel" in its code that allowed Chinese Communist Party members access to user data hosted in the US. Yu is a former engineering lead for ByteDance in the US who worked at the company between 2017 and 2018. The complaint alleges the "Committee continued to have access" to US user data even after ByteDance walled off access for individual engineers in China.

☆ Ex-ByteDance Executive Accuses Company of ‘Lawlessness’
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( Thomas Fuller | Sapna Maheshwari | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A former executive at ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, has accused the technology giant of a “culture of lawlessness,” including stealing content from rival platforms Snapchat and Instagram in its early years, and called the company a “useful propaganda tool for the Chinese Communist Party.”The claims were part of a wrongful dismissal suit filed on Friday by Yintao Yu, who was the head of engineering for ByteDance’s U.S. operations from August 2017 to November 2018. The complaint, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, says Mr. Yu was fired because he raised concerns about a “worldwide scheme” to steal and profit from other companies’ intellectual property. Among the most striking claims in Mr. Yu’s lawsuit is that ByteDance’s offices in Beijing had a special unit of Chinese Communist Party members sometimes referred to as the Committee, which monitored the company’s apps, “guided how the company advanced core Communist values” and possessed a “death switch” that could turn off the Chinese apps entirely. “The Committee maintained supreme access to all the company data, even data stored in the United States,” the complaint said.

☆ An explosive new lawsuit claims TikTok's owner built a 'backdoor' that allowed the CCP to access US user data
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( Dan Whateley | Ashley Rodriguez | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

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