Why TikTok Won’t Say If It’s Giving ICE Your Data

Forbes

A set of changes to TikTok’s law enforcement policy make it easier for the company to share users’ personal information with government and “regulatory authorities.” TikTok did not respond to repeated questions about the changes.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2025/10/21/tiktok-wont-say-if-its-giving-ice-your-data/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now is one of my

00:08colleagues, Emily Baker White. She is an investigative reporter who covers TikTok.

00:13Emily, thanks so much for joining me. Happy to be here as always.

00:17I want to read the headline from your most recent report. It says this,

00:22TikTok won't say if it's giving ICE your data. And that's alarming for some people to hear

00:27because, I mean, I read that and I didn't even know that that was an option, that social media

00:32companies were just willy-nilly handing over your data. I mean, A, is that true? What are other social

00:38media companies doing? And B, does this mean that they are just handing over everyone's data to ICE?

00:44So social media companies can't hand over data willy-nilly in the United States because of

00:50something called the Stored Communications Act, which is a federal law that sort of lays out how

00:56companies that hold our communications. And this law dates back to 1986. It was probably more

01:01intended for phone providers than it was even for internet platforms. But here we are. The Stored

01:08Communications Act sort of lays out the types of data sharing that are allowed between platforms and

01:16the government. And there are sort of two main types of ways that the government can try to get

01:22your information. They can do that in the sort of traditional manner. They go to a judge. They say,

01:27judge, we want a warrant for this thing. It's the same way they would get a warrant to, you know,

01:31come into your house and search your house. And the judge will either say, yes, they've met the

01:35requirements to get that warrant. Or the judge will say, no, actually, you need to do more investigation

01:39before you can sort of invade someone's privacy this way. The second way that the government can try to get

01:46your information is through something called an administrative warrant, which is a warrant that

01:51hasn't gone before a judge, but that is signed by a law enforcement officer, or in this case, a DHS or

01:57ICE official. And those warrants are more limited, right, because they haven't gone before a judge.

02:02But they do still exist. And we know now that DHS and ICE have served administrative warrants to at least

02:10some tech companies. This has happened to Meta a couple times recently. And the way that played out

02:16was Meta got these warrants for people who were posting about ICE, sort of tracking ICE agents'

02:22movements and things like that. And Meta told the people behind the accounts that their information

02:28was being requested. And those people then ran into court and said, this is an overbroad subpoena.

02:33This is, you know, you shouldn't turn over this data right now. And in those couple of cases,

02:38those people were successful. And judges said, okay, yeah, Meta, don't turn over any more information

02:45unless and until I, the judge, tell you to. I want to talk about exactly how TikTok changed

02:52their policy. I'm going to read a line from your reporting. You wrote this, earlier this year,

02:57TikTok quietly changed its policies about when and how it would share data with governments.

03:02I want to talk about that when and the how, because those are obviously the most important

03:05components here. What were they initially and how did the when and how change now?

03:12Yeah. So in TikTok's law enforcement guidelines, which is part of their policies,

03:17they used to say, it is our policy to notify TikTok users before disclosing their data to law

03:24enforcement, unless one of a couple of exceptions took place. Now they say, where required by law,

03:32we will notify TikTok users if we disclose their data. We may not provide such notice. And then they

03:38list their exceptions again. And the language isn't that different, but it's different in a few

03:44important ways. First of all, the old language said that they would notify users before disclosing

03:50their data. New language says they'll notify users if they disclose their data. If you're a user who wants

03:56to fight whether that disclosure should happen, you're going to need to know before it happens in

04:02order to run into court to try to prevent disclosure from happening. So the change from before to if

04:07really stuck out to me. And again, it's worth noting that these policies apply beyond the United

04:16States. And in the United States, the SWORD Communications Act does require notice to users in

04:21certain circumstances. And so here we have laws that like set all this out. But in other jurisdictions

04:27where there isn't a law as much on point, this could have an even bigger impact for people where other

04:34governments, maybe more authoritarian governments, are seeking information about users. Those users could be

04:40in real harm if they don't know that the government is seeking that data, and they might not find out because

04:45of the new change of policy. So just looking at America before we look internationally, I know that the

04:52before was changed to if, does anyone know right now, if their data was turned over to DHS, or any other

05:00office or department in the government? From TikTok? From TikTok. Not so far as I know. And so I started this

05:08reporting before I even found that the language had been changed. I started this reporting by reaching out to all the

05:13tech companies and saying, Hi, what's your policy on administrative warrants? Are you sharing data with

05:18ICE? Do you have a policy about sharing data with ICE? I blitzed them all. Most of them, I heard something

05:24back and I was able to pull up the policies and look at them all. TikTok, radio silence. And so I went and

05:30looked at their policy and I saw that it was a little narrower than some of its competitors, especially on

05:35notice. And then I went and saw that the policy had been recently changed. And so that's how we got here. But TikTok

05:42just wouldn't answer my questions about when and how it would share data with ICE. And the more times I

05:49asked and the more times they ghosted me, the more I was like, what is happening here? And to this day,

05:56they have now acknowledged the story. They asked us to add a comment to the story where they said we

06:01were sort of sensationalizing the facts, but they still didn't answer our questions about under which

06:06circumstances they will share data with ICE and whether they are doing so right now. And I wish they

06:10would answer that question. I think in these types of situations, I mean, does no answer mean that yes,

06:18they are sharing it? Why would a company not say no?

06:23Um, I won't say that no answer means no, it could have a number of other confusing rationales.

06:31I think TikTok is in a very tough spot right now, because they are trying to negotiate the sale with

06:38the Trump administration, they certainly are incentivized not to piss the Trump administration

06:42off. So that might be feeding into their rationale about which questions to answer. Um, it's also

06:50complicated, because there are limited situations in which if a judge tells TikTok they have to turn over

06:55data to ICE, then like, there's not a lot they can do about it, right. And that's why I didn't just ask,

07:00like, are you or have you shared data with ICE? But what is your policy about this? Under what

07:04circumstances would you share the data? And, you know, they didn't answer those questions either.

07:09And so I understand that there may be some legal nuance about when and how these companies can share

07:16data with ICE. But I see TikTok's competitors trying to get out in the open and say, it is our policy to do

07:23this. When we receive these, you know, requests, we do that. And TikTok is trying to do that too,

07:28right. They have a policy, but they're not explaining why they changed their policy.

07:33And I really wish they would answer our questions.

07:35And I think that you touched on this, but I want to talk more about the timing of this

07:40change. It happened this year, the beginning of President Trump's second term. Does it have

07:46anything to do with the Trump administration? Would it have mattered? Whoever was in office,

07:50they were changing this. Is it because there was a lot of questions on will TikTok permanently be

07:55banned? Won't TikTok permanently banned? Is it because of the sale? I mean, what do you think

08:00about the timing?

08:00So the changes were made on April 25th, 2025. At that time, TikTok had been very close to a deal,

08:11or ByteDance had been very close to a deal to sell off part of US TikTok. President Trump had been

08:18escalated tensions with the Chinese government over tariffs, and that deal had been put on ice.

08:22We don't know why they updated their policies at this time. And if I told you I knew, I would be

08:30lying. So I don't. And there are a lot of things that could have gone into it. Maybe there were

08:34scuffles with other governments that contributed to them making this change. What we do know is that

08:41when they made the change, the Trump administration was ramping up a huge push through ICE and DHS,

08:48but also through other agencies like, you know, Brendan Carr at the FTC, right? Like,

08:55various organs of the government began trying to, A, surveil people and like understand people's

09:03movements, especially undocumented people's movements. And B, started trying to exert power

09:09over private companies in ways that we hadn't seen in a really long time. And so the fact that this

09:14change was made causation aside during that moment in US politics, I think is notable because of the

09:22ways that the government might have interpreted the change. And I'm curious when they give over data,

09:29what exactly is that information? Is it your identity? If you have a private account or an anonymous

09:35account? Is it your IP address? I mean, what really does that look like?

09:38Yeah, so it's going to depend on the subpoena. In recent cases where administrative subpoenas

09:47were sent to Meta, DHS and ICE were trying to unmask anonymous account holders who were posting

09:54about ICE, tracking ICE, trying to figure out who the officers were, trying to figure out where they were

10:00going. And that the sort of information that they were seeking about those people were their names,

10:08their email addresses, their IP addresses, which provides a rough approximation of location.

10:15It is possible that with more process and with a judicial warrant, they could get much more than that.

10:22Even they could get the contents of your DMs, right? They could get it theoretically even your

10:28TikTok watch history, maybe. But those things would probably have to come with a judicial warrant

10:33through this sort of non-judicial administrative warrant. They're generally requesting identity

10:40information. And then when you're looking at this as a user of a social media platform and

10:46especially a user of TikTok, I mean, do you think that this really has a chilling effect? Is it more

10:51poor for the course when you're signing up and making a platform, making an account rather,

10:56are you essentially just signing away your right to the privacy of your data?

11:03Yeah. So when you communicate using a digital platform, your communications aren't just between

11:11you and the other person unless they're end-to-end encrypted. They're between you, the person you're

11:16talking to, and the company in charge of the platform that you're operating on. And it's really

11:21important to sort of know that when you're having conversations. If a platform has communications,

11:28usually the government can try to get those communications. And certainly if they go before

11:32a judge and the judge allows them to, usually they can get those communications. And so I would just say

11:39when you have conversations through tech giants, be aware that those tech giants have your communications

11:49unless they are end-to-end encrypted. And that would be things like Signal, WhatsApp, WhatsApp stores a lot

11:54of data about sort of who you talk to in your account, but they don't have your communications themselves.

11:59And, and I think if you were, if you're doing things on, on these tech platforms that aren't

12:05end-to-end encrypted, you should know that the government might try to come for your communications.

12:10And they have to stand up a reason, right? Especially if they're going through a judge,

12:14they have to prove that they have good reason to want to look into your communications.

12:18But they can try to get them and sometimes they will be able to get them. And in the case of TikTok

12:24here, sometimes you might not even know if they're trying to get them. And TikTok, as we know,

12:31isn't just used by Americans. It is an app that's used worldwide. How have you seen this play out in

12:37other countries? Is TikTok there handing over data to the government?

12:41This is a problem that all platforms face around the world, because various governments will come

12:50and will try to get information. And this last played out for TikTok in Indonesia. There were protests,

12:56the protests turned violent. TikTok actually, they suspended their live streaming feature for a while,

13:04and they said they did that because they just didn't want to contribute to tensions. But then,

13:09sounds like something might have been going on on those live streams because the government

13:12demanded data from TikTok about the people who were live streaming before TikTok turned off live

13:18streaming. And initially TikTok said no. They came back to the government and they said that their

13:23internal policies said that they wouldn't be able to disclose some of this data. And then the Indonesian

13:29government suspended TikTok's license to operate in the country. TikTok stayed online, but it could have

13:34been forced offline by the government. And a few days later, the government announced that TikTok had

13:40turned over the data that they requested. The government also said that data was anonymized,

13:44so in theory it couldn't be used to go after individual people. Whether it was sufficiently anonymized,

13:50we're relying on reports from the Indonesian government here now, so who knows. But TikTok did turn over data,

13:58and they lifted the suspension of the license so TikTok was able to keep operating.

14:03And I think that this is really interesting that this wasn't even the initial intent of your story.

14:08You were asking all different social media giants, tech companies, their answer. And you got a different

14:14answer from TikTok than all of them that answered me. I got no answer from TikTok. Initially, yes,

14:18radio silence. That was the answer. So I'm curious how this puzzle piece, do you think,

14:25fits into the larger story here or your larger story of covering TikTok for years?

14:31You know, I really wish they had engaged with us. And I hope they engage with us next time.

14:37I was not necessarily, I didn't set out to report about TikTok here, but TikTok was, you know,

14:46radio silent where others weren't. And it was, its policies had quirks that I wanted to understand,

14:53its policies had updates I wanted to understand, and I really tried to understand them. And,

14:58you know, I don't, I don't know why the company chose not to talk to us, but

15:03I hope they choose to talk to us next time, is what I'll say.

15:09Well, Emily, per usual, thank you so much for your reporting. Until next time.

15:13Thank you so much.

15:22Thank you so much.

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