TikTok’s director of security, Roland Cloutier, will leave his post and continue to work for the company as a strategic advisor. The decision took place in connection with US claims against the service: as the company itself recently admitted, employees from other countries had access to the personal data of US users, while this required “strong cybersecurity controls and permission” from the company’s security service on the territory of the country.
Cloutier will be a consultant on the impact of TikTok’s security programs on the company’s business. Kim Albarella will take over as interim officer and is currently responsible for security risks and supplier and customer security. The Chinese social media CEO Shou Zi Chew said the company will create a separate entity to manage user data in the US; so the responsibilities of Cloutier’s position will change. In this regard, the employee himself decided to retire from 2 September.
In light of the scandal around US user data, TikTok’s worldwide security head is resigning
The claims of the US authorities regarding the personal data of American users on the TikTok platform have been brewing for a long time. As a result, the Chinese company ByteDance; which owns the service, transferred the American segment of TikTok to the American cloud infrastructure to its partner, Oracle. And later admitted that the Chinese employees of the service really had access to the personal data of the Americans.
TikTok sent a letter to US senators explaining how it plans to protect US users’ data. A spokesperson for the company said TikTok will host US user data on cloud servers operated by Oracle; which will be verified by a third party.
The company itself noted that in order to access the data, employees must pass a series of security checks; and the data itself is controlled and cannot be transferred to third parties, including the Chinese government.
Earlier, the US Federal Communications Commission asked Google and Apple; to remove the TikTok app from the App Store and Google Play stores.