Immigration
officers
have
interrogated
more
than
30
TikTok
employees
who
traveled
to
the
US,
Forbes
reports.
Some
workers
at
TikTok
and
its
China-based
parent
company,
ByteDance,
have
been
pulled
aside
by
Customs
and
Border
Protection
(CBP)
and
held
for
additional
questioning,
according
to
the
report.
Many
of
the
workers
who
have
been
singled
out
are
Chinese
nationals.
Some
of
the
people
who
have
been
interrogated
work
in
machine
learning
or
data
engineering.
CBP
agents
have
asked
them
about
their
access
to
US
users’
TikTok
data.
The
workers
have
also
been
asked
about
the
location
of
TikTok’s
US-based
data
centers
and
their
own
individual
involvement
with
Project
Texas,
a
massive
corporate
restructuring
project
designed
to
wall
off
US
user
data
from
ByteDance’s
workers
in
China.
“All
international
travelers
attempting
to
enter
the
United
States,
including
all
U.S.
citizens,
are
subject
to
examination,”
CBP
spokesperson
Erin
Waters
said
in
an
emailed
statement
to
The
Verge.
CBP’s
questioning
has
also
veered
into
more
personal
territory.
According
to
Forbes,
TikTok
employees
have
been
asked
whether
they
are
members
of
the
Chinese
Communist
Party
and
have
also
been
asked
to
provide
information
about
their
schooling
and
political
connections
in
China.
A
source
told
Forbes
that
CBP
agents
have
a
“dedicated,
printed
list
of
questions”
they
use
to
interrogate
TikTok
and
ByteDance
workers.
TikTok
CEO
Shou
Chew
has
been
subjected
to
similar
questioning.
During
a
congressional
hearing
in
January,
Sen.
Tom
Cotton
(R-AR)
repeatedly
asked
Chew
—
who
is
Singaporean
—
whether
he
was
a
member
of
the
Chinese
Communist
Party.
In
multiple
congressional
testimonies,
Chew
has
stressed
that
US
users’
data
is
stored
in
the
United
States
and
isn’t
accessible
by
ByteDance
employees
in
China.
The
effort
to
completely
wall
off
US
user
data
began
in
2022
under
Project
Texas,
which
TikTok
has
described
as
an
“unprecedented
initiative
dedicated
to
making
every
American
on
TikTok
feel
safe,
with
confidence
that
their
data
is
secure
and
the
platform
is
free
from
outside
influence.”
But
several
reports,
including
one
published
by
Fortune
earlier
this
month,
suggest
that
Project
Texas
hasn’t
totally
limited
ByteDance’s
access
to
US
users’
data.
As
Forbes
notes,
the
Committee
on
Foreign
Investment
in
the
United
States
—
which
includes
the
head
of
the
Department
of
Homeland
Security,
which
oversees
CBP
—
has
been
investigating
ByteDance
since
2019.
In
2023,
the
committee
recommended
that
the
US
ban
TikTok
unless
ByteDance
sells
the
app.
Last
week,
President
Joe
Biden
signed
a
foreign
aid
package
that
includes
legislation
that
would
ban
TikTok
unless
ByteDance
divests
from
it
within
the
year.
TikTok
did
not
respond
to
The
Verge’s
request
for
comment.
Update,
April
30th:
This
article
has
been
updated
with
comment
from
Erin
Waters,
the
assistant
commissioner
of
CBP’s
Office
of
Public
Affairs.
(Originally posted by Gaby Del Valle)
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