TikTok parent company ByteDance has fired employees who improperly accessed data from two journalists’ accounts, fuelling concerns over how user information is handled.
ByteDance admitted the breaches in an email to staff, with the employees having looked at the users’ IP addresses, gained through the video sharing app, while investigating information leaks.
Four staff members were fired, two in China and two in US, after the allegations first appeared in October.
“It is standard practice for companies to have an internal audit group authorized to investigate code of conduct violations,” said TikTok general counsel Erich Anderson.
“However, in this case individuals misused their authority to obtain access to TikTok user data,” he added.
For TikTok, the breaches mark a new page in a long running saga over how it handles user data, with several US states having banned the app on government devices over security fears.
Congress may impose this ban across US government employees this week, with increasing concern that ByteDance could hand information collected on the app to the Chinese government.
TikTok has suggested it is working on more stringent data safeguarding policies, but had admitted that European users’ information could be accessed.
The UK’s parliamentary account was also closed down earlier this year, due to the fears.
“This is a direct assault on the idea of a free press and its critical role in a functioning democracy,” commented Randall Lane, chief content officer at Forbes, which first accused TikTok of the infringement.