TikTok accused in California of sending data to China

A California college student has accused popular video-sharing app TikTok in a class-action lawsuit of transferring private user data to servers in China, despite the company’s assurances that it does not store personal data there.

The allegations may deepen legal troubles in the United States for TikTok, which is owned by Beijing ByteDance Technology Co but operates entirely outside of China and has developed an especially devoted fan base among U.S. teenagers.

The company is already facing a U.S. government national security probe over concerns about data storage and possible censorship of political sensitive content.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California last Wednesday and originally reported by The Daily Beast, alleges TikTok has surreptitiously “vacuumed up and transferred to servers in China vast quantities of private and personally-identifiable user data.”