Whistleblower alleges TikTok leaked data of Hong Kong protesters to China

In a recent court filing in the United States, former ByteDance executive Yintao Yu has accused TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, of permitting Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members to access the data of Hong Kong civil rights activists and protesters.

According to the report, Yu alleges that individuals who uploaded content related to protests were identified and monitored, and that CCP members had the ability to access data from TikTok users in the United States as well.

However, a spokesperson for ByteDance has dismissed these claims as unfounded.

In the lawsuit filed at San Francisco Superior Court, Yu claimed that members of a CCP committee had access to a “superuser” credential referred to as the “god user,” which granted them access to all the data collected by ByteDance.

He further asserted that these committee members were not employees of ByteDance but were physically present at the company’s offices in Beijing.

Yu contended that this information was well-known among senior executives during his tenure as the head of engineering for ByteDance in the United States from August 2017 onwards.

The court filing also alleged that in 2018, the CCP committee members utilized their “god credential” to “identify and locate the Hong Kong protesters, civil rights activists, and supporters of the protests.”

In 2014, Hong Kong witnessed significant protests known as the Umbrella movement, during which people demanded the right to elect their own leader.

Subsequently, civil rights activists organized smaller demonstrations.

However, much of this visible dissent has diminished since Beijing implemented a stringent national security law following the anti-government protests in 2019.

When contacted by the BBC, a spokesperson from ByteDance refuted the allegations, stating, “We strongly deny these baseless claims and allegations in the complaint and intend to vigorously oppose them.”

The spokesperson also mentioned that Yintao Yu was employed by the company for less than a year, during which he worked on a discontinued app called Flipagram.

“It is intriguing that Yu has never raised these allegations in the five years since his employment with Flipagram was terminated in July 2018. It is evident that his actions are aimed at seeking media attention,” added the ByteDance spokesperson.

These allegations from Yu emerge at a time when TikTok is facing intense scrutiny worldwide.

In March, TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, underwent a four-and-a-half-hour questioning session at a congressional hearing in the United States.

Both Democrats and Republicans inquired about the app’s data security, privacy practices, and alleged connections to Beijing.

Following the hearing, a TikTok spokesperson remarked that the politicians were engaging in “grandstanding.”

In May, Montana became the first U.S. state to enact a comprehensive ban on the Chinese-owned video-sharing platform.

Scheduled to be implemented in January 2024, the ban will render it unlawful for app stores to provide TikTok, but it does not prohibit existing TikTok users from utilising the app.

TikTok has filed a lawsuit to prevent Montana from enforcing the ban, arguing that it infringes upon the free speech rights protected by the United States Constitution. Montana, with a population slightly exceeding one million, previously prohibited the use of the app on government devices in December of the previous year.

According to TikTok, the platform boasts 150 million users in the United States. Despite its recent growth in user numbers, the app remains particularly popular among teenagers and individuals in their twenties.

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