The CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, will tell lawmakers that the Chinese-owned short video app with over 150 million American users has never and will never share U.S. user data with the Chinese government, despite rising U.S. national security concerns.

TikTok has never asked for or given Chinese authorities access to user information from Americans. The House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee's prepared evidence, which was submitted on Tuesday, states that Chew would testify on Thursday that TikTok would not accede to such a request even if it were made.

He asserted that no government or governmental body owns or controls ByteDance, the business that operates TikTok. Chew would tell the committee, "Let me say this clearly: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other government.

Detractors of TikTok are concerned that the software may provide user information to China's government, which has prompted further requests for a ban from US legislators. This week, TikTok reported that the Biden administration had forced its Chinese owners to relinquish their app ownership stakes or face having their company banned from the United States.

"Bans are only appropriate when there are no other choices. Yet there is a different choice "In his testimony, Chew made a notation.

TikTok claims to have spent over $1.5 billion on "Project Texas," a programme it refers to as "rigorous data security efforts."

After the procedure was complete, Chew said "All protected U.S. data will be protected by a security team led by Americans and controlled by U.S. law. Within this arrangement, the Chinese government cannot get access to it or compel access to it."

Also Read: According to TikTok, employees in China have access to user data from the UK and the EU.

According to the corporation, it started this month to destroy user-protected American data stored in data centres in Singapore and Virginia after starting to transmit new American data to the Oracle Cloud last year. Chew testified that this procedure is expected to be finished later this year.

According to Chew's evidence, the firm is owned 20% by its founders, 20% by Sequoia, 20% by its employees, "including thousands of Americans," and 20% by international institutional investors like Blackrock and General Atlantic.

TikTok stated on Monday that more than 150 million Americans now routinely use the site, up from its projection of 100 million users in 2020. Chew's findings suggest that the typical user of today is an adult who has completed college.

Despite making up 10% of our worldwide population, users in the United States account for 25% of all views, according to Chew's testimony.

According to Chew, the app's most recent iterations do not gather accurate or estimated Geolocation data from users in the United States.