The deal that software company Oracle has negotiated with Chinese company ByteDance on social media app TikTok is not enough to allay concerns in the US government about China’s access to user data.
Those concerns are voiced by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, writes Bloomberg news agency based on insiders.
His colleagues William Barr of Justice and Steven Mnuchin of Finance have also been briefed on the proposed deal and are now looking into it.
Ultimately, President Donald Trump decides to approve the agreement.
The latter stated at a press conference at the White House on Wednesday that his administration had not yet decided on the deal. Trump emphasized that he wants to avoid any loopholes.
The deal must be ‘100 percent’ compliant with national security, the president said, who further assured that ‘he is not willing to sign anything’.
He says he will receive a report on the content of the agreement on Thursday morning local time.
TikTok had to be sold from the US to an American company for security reasons. The Americans believe that the Chinese government has access to the data of users of the app of the popular video as long as it is in the hands of the Chinese ByteDance.
That company talked to Microsoft, among others, but eventually reached an agreement with Oracle.
That deal is nowhere near a takeover. ByteDance would place all of TikTok’s activities, not just the American ones, in a company based in the US. User data would also be stored in the US.
Oracle then becomes involved in the storage and operations of the American TikTok company. The software maker would also take a minority stake in this, but ByteDance holds more than half of the company.
