China’s CCP accused of spying on TikTok users with ‘god credential’

In a recent lawsuit, a former ByteDance executive has alleged that China’s Communist Party (CCP) can access user data collected by TikTok through a “god credential” that was used to monitor and track Hong Kong activists and protesters in 2018. Yintao “Roger” Yu, the former head of engineering at ByteDance in the United States, claimed that a special committee in Beijing had a backdoor to firewalls set up by ByteDance to protect user data and used this access to spy on users in Hong Kong.

Yu stated in the court filing, “Protesters’, supporters’, and civil rights activists’ device identifiers were tracked in addition to their network information, SIM card identifications, and IP addresses.” He added, “This information was used to determine both the users’ identity and locations. The TikTok app stores all the users’ direct messages, their search histories, the content viewed by the users, and duration. From the logs, I saw that the Committee accessed the protestors’, civil rights activists’, and supporters’ unique user data, locations, and communications.”

The existence of the “god credential” is said to be well known among ByteDance executives and directly contradicts promises they have made to legislators in the US and other countries who are debating whether to ban TikTok over national security concerns. Yu’s claims are part of a wrongful dismissal suit against ByteDance, following a court filing in May where he alleged that the backdoor “allows certain high-level persons to access user data, no matter where the data is located, even if hosted by a US company with servers located in the US.”

Furthermore, Yu claimed he witnessed ByteDance using TikTok to further the CCP’s political agenda, including promoting content “that expressed hatred for Japan” and demoting content that expressed support for Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement democracy protests. ByteDance is also alleged to have scraped data on its website and those of competitors like Instagram and Snapchat without permission.

Yu is suing ByteDance for allegedly firing him for raising concerns about illegal conduct at the company, in violation of whistleblower protections, and discrimination related to his disability-related medical leave. In response to the suit’s claims, a ByteDance spokesperson said, “It’s curious that Mr. Yu has never raised these allegations in the five years since his employment for Flipagram was terminated in July 2018. His actions are clearly intended to garner media attention.” The spokesperson added, “We plan to vigorously oppose what we believe are baseless claims and allegations in this complaint.”