Concern prevails in Washington, as the popular worldwide social networking app TikTok acknowledged in its response to the US government that sensitive information about US creators who sign up to earn money through the app is stored in China.

The company responded Friday to a letter recently sent by bipartisan Senate leaders to TikTok CEO Su Zi-Chiu raising concerns about his “false claims” to Congress about where he has TikTok stores its users’ data in the US.

Weeks after Chu testified to a House committee that “US data was always stored in Virginia and Singapore,” a Forbes investigation found that TikTok has stored the financial information of his biggest American and European stars— including those in the TikTok Creator Fund — on servers in China. After these revelations, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal and Republican Marsha Blackburn demanded answers.

In TikTok’s response to their questions, the Chinese company clarified, that there is a difference between “user data collected by the TikTok app in the US” and information that creators give to TikTok so they can get paid for the content they post on the app.

The former is stored in TikTok’s data centers in the US and Singapore, TikTok said. It did not explicitly state where the latter are stored. A “trove” of internal documents obtained by Forbes and several people in various parts of the company with knowledge of the matter showed that tax forms, Social Security numbers and other information from creators and outside suppliers have been stored in China.

Payments on both are handled through tools from TikTok’s parent company China-based ByteDance. “We stand by the statements our company executives made to Congress,” TikTok wrote in the letter. “We were questioned and our testimony focused on protected user data collected in the app – not creator data.”

Creator data, he explained, is often an exception. “Protected data” is “user data determined by the US government to be in need of additional protection,” the letter said. However, he stressed that there are “limited exceptions” that he said were “determined as part of TikTok’s extensive, multi-year negotiations with CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States)” — the government body working on a national security deal that would allow the app to continue operating in the US.

The letter argues that these “limited exceptions” include all of the following categories: “Public data, business metrics, interoperability data, and certain creator data if a creator voluntarily enrolls in a commercial program that will be supported by TikTok to reach new audiences and content monetization’.

Asked about TikTok’s distinction between “two different categories of data: protected data and exempt data,” the Senators Blumenthal and Blackburn commented to Forbes that they were not convinced.

“We are extremely concerned that TikTok is storing personal, private data of Americans accessible to the Chinese government,” the senators explained in a joint statement.

“TikTok executives appear to have repeatedly and intentionally misled Congress in answering how the company protects and guards Americans’ data. TikTok’s response makes clear that Americans’ data is still exposed to Beijing’s draconian and ubiquitous spying regimes — despite the claims of TikTok’s misleading PR campaign.”

Congressional leaders aren’t the only ones sounding the alarm over allegations made under oath by top TikTok executives that appear to contradict the Forbes report’s findings. Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Marco Rubio earlier this month asked Attorney General Merrick Garland for the Justice Department to open an investigation into whether the TikTok CEO committed perjury in his deposition. A week later, 13 House Republicans followed suit. Asked by Senators Blumenthal and Blackburn whether TikTok has taken steps to investigate whether TikTok Creator Fund data stored or accessible in China has been shared with officials in Beijing, the company argued: “This TikTok data has not been requested by the Chinese government or the CCP.”

Asked again whether TikTok Creator Fund data stored in China has been or will be removed from servers there, the company commented that the deletion was in progress for “protected data”. This, according to TikTok, it does not include personal information submitted by top creators to get paid.

In Forbes’ exclusive report, there is no reaction from the competent European authorities on the matter.