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Businesses China Social Networks

TikTok Has Been Quietly Sending Job Applicants' Personal Data to China (businessinsider.com) 60

TikTok routes the personal data of job applicants through servers in China, and only discloses this to candidates in certain countries, Business Insider has discovered. From a report: US job candidates, notably, are not told their data will be routed through China. Some of the personal information TikTok says it collects about applicants is potentially highly sensitive, with the firm's own policies stating that it collects medical data; sex and race data; marital status; geolocation data, among many other categories. The revelation is an embarrassment for TikTok, which has spent much of 2020 maintaining that it is separate to its Chinese owner ByteDance, and fending off unproven insinuations by President Trump that it funnels user data to China. After being approached by Business Insider, TikTok said it would no longer store job applicant data in China.
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TikTok Has Been Quietly Sending Job Applicants' Personal Data to China

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    After it all died down of course, and people forgot, they went right back to sending data to china.

    This is how Chinese companies work. Learn.

  • by mccalli ( 323026 ) on Wednesday December 16, 2020 @09:26AM (#60837178) Homepage
    I'm wondering where you expected it to be sent. Svalbard perhaps?
  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Wednesday December 16, 2020 @09:37AM (#60837234)

    ... get shitty privacy. Maybe if privacy was actually a topic in the elections because enough people cared about it, things would be a bit different.

    That it can be done is nicely demonstrated by the GDPR. It is not perfect but pretty nice. And it comes with some real threats to violators that actually get implemented.

  • If they did it in Europe it will be 10% worldwide turnover and even the fact that they tried to register in the same "regulator is a pussycat" location as F*ckbook, Google, Apple and Microsoft will not save their sorry a**e.

    In fact, the pussycat is already hissing that they are not particularly welcome, this will only add to their "requirests for information": https://www.scmp.com/news/chin... [scmp.com]

    • Then I go to that link and am immediately hit with a request to use google to sign in. I didn't ask to sign in! The page has a helpful link to a page explaining why I can trust SCMP.

      China is a personal information dumpster fire.

      • Then I go to that link and am immediately hit with a request to use google to sign in. I didn't ask to sign in! The page has a helpful link to a page explaining why I can trust SCMP.

        China is a personal information dumpster fire.

        Apologies. As I use noscript by default I usually do not see any of this sh*t.

        In any case - they had their European HQ in London and they want to move it to Ireland for obvious reasons - the Irish DPA are less like 5 people in a corner shop in some god forgotten town in the country: https://twitter.com/dpcireland... [twitter.com]

        That is the actual reason why all the usual suspects are in Ireland. Taxes are only secondary - Bulgaria, Hungary, etc have same or even lower corporate tax.

        I find it quite funny that the r

  • Everyone is the security community has been saying this for months, Trump has been railing against this company for just as long. No one cares, they are happy to send their data to anyone so long as they get their entertainment value in return.

  • How many companies do this - sending applications to HQ?

    Anyway, most people have more details on LinkedIn than they have on a job applications.
  • by stabiesoft ( 733417 ) on Wednesday December 16, 2020 @10:58AM (#60837560) Homepage
    Who in their right minds would provide medical data to any org such as TikTok? Who? I would not supply that info to *any* social media platform under *any* circumstances. No one and I mean no one is getting that except insurance and doc's, at least from me.
  • by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Wednesday December 16, 2020 @11:21AM (#60837670) Homepage Journal

    I don't like the personal data that I have, how can I change it?

  • They are a Chinese company.
    Hence ther servers are obviously in China.
    Which, yes, has an evil leadership.
    And?

    Every time we have to use US sites in the EU,
    our data goes to US servers.
    To us, the US has an evil leadership.
    Have I complained that "Tuh ebil Muricans are stealin' our dataz!"?
    No, I don't blame some business for a leadership they did not even choose.

    Your addition of "quietly", as if it was some evil scheming, is as transparent as ever, Mr. Trump news troll.
    I'm sorry, your four years of fame are over

  • by bjwest ( 14070 ) on Wednesday December 16, 2020 @12:07PM (#60837838)
    U.S. companies do it with other countries data and countries other than China do it with our data. If you want to stop this, privacy laws have to be enacted, but we all know the corporate owners of our lawmakers will never allow that.
  • by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Wednesday December 16, 2020 @12:32PM (#60837996)

    When I applied to Huawei Venezuela in 2008, my CV (with all personal data) found its way from the Venezuelan offcie to China. Ditto in 2012 but as an independent contractor for them.
    When I applied for an MBA in the Venezuelan office of an Spanish Business School, my CV found its way from the Venezuelan office to Spain.
    When I applied from Vz to work for Siemens in Colombia in 2004, my CV found its way from Colombia to Germany.
    And when I applied to work for Nokia in 1999, my CV found its way to Finland...

    So? What is wrong here? Am I missing something?

    • by bhatji ( 311418 )

      When I applied to Huawei Venezuela in 2008, my CV (with all personal data) found its way from the Venezuelan offcie to China. Ditto in 2012 but as an independent contractor for them.
      When I applied for an MBA in the Venezuelan office of an Spanish Business School, my CV found its way from the Venezuelan office to Spain.
      When I applied from Vz to work for Siemens in Colombia in 2004, my CV found its way from Colombia to Germany.
      And when I applied to work for Nokia in 1999, my CV found its way to Finland...

      So? What is wrong here? Am I missing something?

      Not sure if you noticed this, this China / CCP we are talking about. You really need to check your assumptions.

  • It sounds like Tik Tok is asking a lot of illegal questions of job applicants
  • If I apply and/or work for a Chinese company, I should expect that everything that company knows would be shared with the Chinese government. It's their law and their right. If you don't like it, work for somebody else.
  • ...Trump was right?
  • i should apply there, maybe president xi will save me from the disgusting great north american plagued mudhole

C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas l'Informatique. -- Bosquet [on seeing the IBM 4341]

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