Customs and Border Protection is interrogating TikTok employees at airports

Immigration officers questioned more than 30 TikTok employees who traveled to the US, Forbes reports. Some workers at TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, were removed by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and detained for further questioning, according to the report. Many of the workers named are Chinese citizens.

Some of the people questioned work in machine learning or data engineering. CBP agents asked them about accessing US users’ TikTok data. The workers were also questioned 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 isolate US user data from ByteDance workers in China.

CBP’s questioning also veered into more personal territory. According to Forbes, TikTok employees were asked whether they are members of the Chinese Communist Party and were also asked to provide information about their education and political connections in China. A source said Forbes that CBP agents have a “dedicated, printed list of questions” that they use to interrogate TikTok and ByteDance employees.

TikTok CEO Shou Chew was 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 several congressional testimony, Chew emphasized that US users’ data is stored in the United States and cannot be accessed by ByteDance employees in China. The effort to completely block US user data began in 2022 under Project Texas, which TikTok described as an “unprecedented initiative dedicated to making every American on TikTok feel safe, with the confidence that their data is secure and the platform is free from external influences.” .” But several reports, including one published by Fortune earlier this month suggest that Project Texas did not fully limit ByteDance’s access to US user 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 the ByteDance sold the app. Last week, President Joe Biden signed a foreign aid package that includes legislation that would ban TikTok unless ByteDance divested it within a year.

CBP and TikTok did not respond to On the edge requests for comments.