'If you don’t want to share all that information, delete the app. You’ve got to think about the risk to yourself ... and your future self. Data hangs around for a long time.'
SBS, Getty
He quoted Roland Cloutier, the platform's chief security officer who fronted the 2020 Senate Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media and said: "We would never give Australian user data to the Chinese government."A TikTok spokesperson told SBS News in a statement that Australian user data is stored in the United States and Singapore.
“TikTok’s been hiding [facts] and dodging questions and, really, Australians should have clarity about where their data is being held and about who can access it,” she said.TikTok does not share how many Australian users it has, but some estimates put the figure around 7.4 million — and that's just those who are over 18.
“Even before you upload any explicit information, [TikTok] is gathering a whole lot of stuff about you and your files and your friends."“For example, you might think you’ve removed location permission from the app, but if you’ve uploaded videos that are tagged with the GPS location of where the video is taken, you’re conveying that information to the system,” she said.
Ms Yang said TikTok is not the only social media platform Australians share data with to this extent. “The Chinese government – by law – can access any data for national security purposes [and] they have a really broad definition of what is the national security purpose.