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TikTok-Oracle Deal Sparks New Security Questions

TikTok’s apparent alliance with Oracle has prompted a fresh set of concerns around cybersecurity and data privacy. In August, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that purportedly forced the video-sharing app’s Beijing-based owner, ByteDance, to sell TikTok’s U.S. operations or face a nationwide ban. How that would be enforced is still unclear.

TikTokMore recently, Microsoft announced its offer to buy TikTok had been rejected. Various outlets have reported that business software giant Oracle would become the U.S. partner for ByteDance, though it appears the deal will probably fall short of the outright purchase demanded by Trump.

The Treasury Department, which confirmed the planned partnership, has indicated that it will review the arrangement to be sure it satisfies security concerns, as The Washington Post reports. While TikTok has maintained that it does not share any U.S. user data with the Chinese government, the Trump administration has repeatedly warned about TikTok’s use of American information.

Karim Hijazi, CEO of cybersecurity firm Prevailion, told Yahoo Finance the deal doesn’t necessarily resolve “any of the problems” from a security or data privacy perspective. “There’s a lot of hurdles to get over,” Hijazi said.

Jeff Chester, executive director of the privacy nonprofit Center for Digital Democracy, warned that Oracle itself presents a privacy concern. “Oracle has assembled an array of powerful targeting subsidiaries, now called the Oracle Marketing and Oracle Data Clouds, that raise privacy issues in the deal,” Chester told Politico. “Unless the Administration and regulators act, Oracle will be able to leverage TikTok users data for its other business operations.”

Trump’s affinity for Oracle may also be a factor. Trump said last month that Oracle was a “great company” and that it “would be certainly somebody that could handle” the TikTok deal. In February, Oracle founder Larry Ellison hosted a fundraiser for the president.

Meanwhile, Oracle has announced two new cybersecurity tools, Oracle Cloud Guard and Oracle Maximum Security Zones. As Business Insider reports, the company came to the cloud security space after rivals Amazon, Microsoft, Google, but is trying to catch up quickly.

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