There is an area within TikTok’s “dedicated transparency center” set up for Oracle employees to review the app’s source code for influence operations, covert changes, and other tampering. It looks like a normal office: There’s a reception where guests can check in, TikTok logos on the walls, and a safe by the door where employees of the database giant protect their phones before entering. Once they do, they sit at desks below overhead cameras controlled by TikTok, a requirement that two sources say comes directly from the Chinese government.

The number and position of these cameras have been a source of contention between TikTok’s parent company ByteDance and Oracle in recent months, according to four sources with knowledge and internal documents reviewed by Forbes. ByteDance had planned to place a camera above each Oracle employee as they worked, but Oracle balked, saying the cameras would allow ByteDance to see their passwords and other proprietary information.

The relationship between ByteDance and Oracle has become deeply mistrustful and contentious, according to five sources. A source with knowledge of the companies’ actions characterized Oracle’s stance toward ByteDance as a “counterintelligence operation,” rather than a normal customer relationship. Meanwhile, some ByteDance employees are wondering if Oracle just wants to increase their bill. The TikTok contract, known internally at Oracle as Project Telesis, has made ByteDance one of Oracle’s most lucrative clients.

Details of a draft of the summer 2022 agreement between ByteDance and the Biden Administration, reviewed by Forbes and reported here for the first time, show that if the parties could reach an agreement, TikTok’s relationship with Oracle would go beyond just from a typical service provider. The draft agreement, as it was being negotiated at the time, appeared to give Oracle the power to determine whether TikTok’s source code matched ByteDance’s representations to the United States (US) government, and if it determined that it did not matched, suspend the functionality of TikTok in the United States. United States, withholding the app from its 150 million US users.

The draft agreement would also have given the government the right to require ByteDance to temporarily halt TikTok’s operation in the US in certain circumstances, even if Oracle claimed that TikTok and ByteDance had not provided it with the necessary funds to carry out its responsibilities. .

TikTok spokesman Alex Haurek did not comment on the relationship between TikTok and Oracle or the draft agreement, nor did he answer a detailed list of questions. Instead, he provided this statement: “The cameras are part of industry-wide standard physical security protocols to protect valuable business assets and their purpose here is simply to protect company intellectual property. It is important to note that these cameras would be controlled and operated by USDS personnel. We have reached a working level agreement with Oracle on the location and use of the camera and, more importantly, Oracle will have complete freedom to conduct its code review and other work on a confidential basis.”

In September 2020, just weeks before an executive order signed by President Donald Trump had effectively banned TikTok, the app’s parent company, ByteDance, submitted a proposal to the Trump Administration naming Oracle as its “technology provider.” reliable”. Over the next two years (and a change in presidential administrations), that proposal would evolve to explain how Oracle, or another “trusted technology provider” to TikTok, could help save enforcement from a US ban by becoming the the company’s main supplier. service provider and government informant in case the government misbehaves.

ByteDance had planned to place a camera above each Oracle employee as they worked, but Oracle refused, saying the cameras would allow ByteDance to see their passwords.

TikTok has been open about the part of the draft agreement that would have put Oracle in charge of monitoring TikTok’s recommendation algorithms for wrongdoing. But it appears that the contract would also have made TikTok and ByteDance responsible for ensuring that Oracle actually carries out