Amritsar, NFAPost: In an attempt to reclaim trust, banned Chinese video-sharing social networking application TikTok has told the Indian government that it is ready to set up data centres in India to store user information locally.
TikTok had previously acknowledged that it used to save data of Indian users mainly on third-party servers in the US and Singapore.
The app controlled by China’s internet giant ByteDance also continued to deny any breach of user privacy and integrity, stressing that its operations always adhered to local laws and regulations.
This defence comes in response to a detailed questionnaire sent by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to all the banned Chinese apps.
The questionnaire, which contained over 70 questions, sought details on several issues such as data management practises, unauthorised data access, data processing and collection, anf security features, among others.
The Centre has formed a high-level committee to look into the responses of the blocked Chinese apps that would help it work out the future course of action, including a decision to have any face-to-face meeting or on whether to seek any further details.
TikTok was among the 59 Chinese apps that were banned by the government last month over charges including for “engaging in activities which are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order”.
“We have submitted our response to the government and are working with them to provide clarifications to allay the concerns they have. Throughout the duration of our operations, we have demonstrated unequivocal commitment to complying with local laws, including data privacy and security requirements,” The Times of India quoted a spokesperson for TikTok.
ByteDance has also reportedly said that it wants to set up an engineering centre in India that would work on global product and tech innovations.
The government this week banned another 47 Chinese apps including TikTok Lite, Helo Lite, SHAREit Lite and Bigo Lite. These applications were primarily variants of the apps banned last month and were reported to have breached data and privacy issues.
The Centre has further drawn a list of over 250 apps owned or backed by Chinese firms to examine any user or national security violations. This list includes popular gaming app PubG, backed by Tencent and e-commerce app AliExpress, owned by Alibaba Group.
