TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has claimed that, were parent ByteDance to sell the company, that alone wouldn't be enough to prevent it from scrutiny over security concerns. Chew made the assertion following reports this week (which TikTok has confirmed) that the US government has told TikTok to divest itself from ByteDance or face a national ban. "Divestment doesn’t solve the problem: a change in ownership would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access," TikTok said in the wake of those reports.
Chew claimed that the US and other countries would still have problems with how the app handles user data were it to have a different owner. Officials have expressed fear that China will gain access to user data linked to their residents.