Former ByteDance executive says Chinese Communist Party tracked Hong Kong protesters via data
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By ZEN SOO
Associated Press
HONG KONG (AP) — A former executive at ByteDance, the Chinese company which owns the popular short-video app TikTok, says in a legal filing that some members of the ruling Communist Party used data held by the company to identify and locate protesters in Hong Kong. Yintao Yu, formerly head of engineering for ByteDance in the U.S., says those same people had access to U.S. user data, an accusation that the company denies. Yu also says he saw the “superuser” credential used to track Hong Kong protesters and civil rights activists by monitoring their locations and devices, network information, SIM card identifications, IP addresses and communications. ByteDance denies the allegations.