TikTok’s global expansion under a cloud as it faces renewed scrutiny over data privacy, China links
- Beijing has largely remained muted on the issue, but pushed back when UK prime ministerial candidate Liz Truss said she would crack down on TikTok if elected
- Concerns over TikTok’s data collection policy have been expressed in Italy and Australia, and in June it moved all US data to servers controlled by Oracle

TikTok, the popular short video app owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, faces new scrutiny in the US and Britain over its data privacy policies, putting expansion plans in those markets under a cloud.
Complaints over the data practices of the popular Chinese-owned app have grown louder recently, with politicians, media outlets, and research agencies turning up the heat to a level unseen since the Trump administration’s failed attempt to shut it down or force a sale to American owners in 2020.
Beijing-based ByteDance has kept a low profile on the matter after revamping its business structure last year to make TikTok one of its six business groups.
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
TikTok, which has over 1 billion monthly active users worldwide, is not available in China. The mainland Chinese market is served by its sister app Douyin, which has an active daily user base of over 600 million.