/ NewsInformation based on facts and verified first hand by the reporter, or reported and verified by expert sources.TikTok, the most popular social network of the moment, is once again in the midst of a geopolitical confrontation between the United States and China, after the US Senate Intelligence Committee asked to investigate it for alleged espionage and data leaks in favor of Beijing.According to an investigation carried out by the specialized platform Data.ai, TikTok registers one billion active users monthly in the United States and exceeds, by a wide margin, the time of permanence compared to its competition.Users spend an average of 29 hours per month on this application developed by the Chinese technology giant ByteDance.To make the figure clearer, the same study indicates that Facebook registers about 16 hours per month and Instagram 8 hours per month under the same concept.For this reason, an article published in mid-June by the Buzzfeed News media outlet set off all the alarms by exposing that TikTok would be leaking information from its American users to the Chinese Government.The request of the Senate, signed by the president of the committee, Mark Warner, and the vice president, Marco Rubio, collects the Buzzfeed investigation and requests to delve into the work of the social network and its relationship with Beijing.Buzzfeed's revealing investigation was based on the leak of 80 recordings of TikTok workers, including 14 statements made by 9 different employees, alleging that engineers in China had access to US user data at least between September 2021 and January 2020. 2022.If proven, this action would contravene the sworn statements given by TikTok's head of Public Policy, Michael Beckerman, before the US Senate in October 2021, in which he claimed that a "world-renowned security team based in the US. USA.”decided who has access to that data.This statement was made in the framework of investigations into the safety of children on social networks.However, a year earlier the United States and TikTok had already had a first brush, when Donald Trump was still in the White House.The then president tried to block the application in his country if TikTok did not ensure that the companies Oracle and Walmart, with which he was about to close an important commercial agreement, would have "total control" over the data of American users.In response, TikTok undertook the so-called Texas Project, which consisted of replicating its servers in the United States to be managed by its partner Oracle.The audios leaked to Buzzfeed, however, would show that the data of American users continues to reach China.And this is not the first time that an issue like this has generated tension between the two governments.“The geopolitical issue, brought to digital environments, has had a long discussion with Huawei teams, with the separation of various operating systems, with 5G used as a strategic issue.It is clear that if a company has Chinese origin, like TikTok, and also has access to multiple information on citizens, it will be investigated.On the other hand, the Chinese Government or Russia, for example, also carry out research on North American technologies”, Erick Iriarte, a lawyer specializing in digital law, told El Comercio.In 2019, Trump vetoed Huawei by ordering US companies to cease their business deals with the Chinese company for posing a threat to national security.Despite the change in government, the Joe Biden Administration has continued with this veto and extended the list to other Chinese companies, including ZTE.And behind these new geopolitical conflicts brought to the digital world there is a key issue: back doors.This is how cracks are known that can serve to filter, voluntarily or involuntarily, the information of users to third parties.“When you enter your information into a technological platform, you trust that it will store it and use it only for the purpose of the business.Here there are at least three different levels of possible use: one by other users who have Terms and Conditions to use it in a certain way, if they do not, local legislation applies;second, how the entity that has the information manages it, if it has a security breach or if it shares it with third parties, local legislation is also applicable;but if the platform has backdoors that can be used by third parties to access personal or financial information or what activities you carry out, then those are not necessarily regulated.The UN said in 2013 that human rights must also be respected in digital environments, mainly that of privacy, and that states must not directly or indirectly carry out mass surveillance of users,” explains Iriarte.In this sense, in the case of TikTok, the investigations would be aimed at confirming whether these leaks exist and the responsibility that the Chinese company would have for them.“You have to determine if there are backdoors in the system, if they were designed by TikTok or found as breaches, if there was an active activity of the company to deliver information to the Chinese Government and to what part of it.But the circumstance is the intentionality and the proactive action of this”, points out the expert.With this, a new question arises.What would happen to TikTok in the United States if it is proven that there was an intention to leak said information to China?Among the answers, the total veto of the application in said territory could not be ruled out, according to Iriarte.“They already mentioned the blockade, they have thought about removing them from the Apple and Android digital markets.That's where Congress comes in to say if they are affecting citizenship or national security.Another option is to 'ban' it from telecommunications services, but in return China could also unsubscribe from Facebook, for example.There must be a delicate balance because sometimes the back doors are not even known by the same companies.They are spaces that are poorly programmed or forced by third parties that could affect national security or citizen freedoms”, he points out.According to the criteria ofJournalistic Director: Juan Aurelio Arévalo Miró QuesadaPublishing Company El Comercio.Jorge Salazar Araoz # 171 Santa Catalina La Victoria.Copyright © Elcomercio.pe.Grupo El Comercio - All rights reserved