It looks like China did have access to U.S. TikTok user data

ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, seems to have checked out data collected about users in the U.S.

Over a dozen separate statements from nine different TikTok employees show that engineers in China had access to the U.S. data. The member of TikTok's Trust and Safety department said in September that everything is seen in China. There is a Beijing-based engineer who has access to everything.

It's possible that former President Donald Trump was correct in his assessment of the app when he said in an August 2020 executive order that China could access Americans' personal and proprietary information. TikTok has never shared user data with the Chinese government.

A TikTok spokesman said the app is among the most scrutinized platforms from a security standpoint and that it will remove any doubts about the security of U.S. user data.

The data collection by TikTok is just another step in the process of collecting information on its users and doing whatever it pleases with it. It is becoming more and more difficult to be online in 2022.