The United States Department of Justice would be investigating the Chinese company ByteDance, owner of TikTok, for spying on two journalists Americans who cover the technology industry, as published in the last hours of this Friday by several media outlets in the North American country.
The first to advance the information was the journalist Emily Baker-White of Forbesone of the two communicators whose data was obtained irregularly by several ByteDance employees, who were fired after the company itself recognized the event, in December of last year.
According to the outlet, which cites sources with knowledge of the investigation, the FBI has also conducted interviews about what happenedalthough it does not clarify whether both investigations are related.
(Keep reading: Microsoft fired the ethics team that oversaw its artificial intelligence.)
The newspaper The New York Times confirmed this Friday the Justice Department investigation, which according to its sources was launched at the end of last year.
In December, the Chinese company said in a statement that it “firmly” condemned the actions of the employees and that they no longer worked for the company.. In addition, he promised to collaborate with any investigation that could trigger the event.
The employees allegedly accessed data such as the IP addresses of both journalists and several of their contacts while trying to determine if there had been document leaks and internal conversations, it says. The New York Times.
(Also read: Hacked cell phones: this is how you can protect yourself from unauthorized calls).
The news comes at a time when the US and European authorities are hardening their stance on the TikTok social network, fearing that it could be used to collect data that ends up in the hands of the Chinese government.
Last February, both the European Commission and the Council of the European Union announced that they will veto the popular application from official mobile devices, after which the White House gave US federal agencies 30 days to remove the social network from all devices. government electronics.
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EFE
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