The general counsel for TikTok and ByteDance, the Chinese parent company, defended the social media platform’s plan to protect American user data from China amid intense scrutiny from Washington, which could lead to a potential ban. In an interview at a cybersecurity conference in Sausalito, California, Erich Andersen said that ByteDance would continue to develop Lemon8, a new social app resembling Instagram and Pinterest. Andersen also emphasized that the company would comply with US law and do its best to safeguard user data from the Chinese government. TikTok is under scrutiny amid concerns that it could hand over user data to Beijing or push pro-Beijing propaganda. To allay these concerns, the company has proposed Project Texas, which would store all US user data on Oracle-owned servers. Andersen cited a $1.5bn proposal, called Project Texas, aimed at storing all US user data on servers maintained by Oracle, as a way to ease concerns. The US government, along with several other countries, have banned TikTok on government devices. TikTok maintains it has never been asked to turn over any data and hopes to stay operating in the US. The Biden administration is considering a US ban on TikTok unless its Chinese owners divest their stakes in the company.