A commissioner at the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has called on the US government to ban TikTok in the United States over privacy and security concerns the app.
The Chinese short video app was banned in India in 2020 over similar concerns but kept being the most downloaded app in the rest of the world.
That brings up a lot of questions but the main one would be “is TikTok really a danger to privacy?”. The answer is YES.
TikTok Collects a Lot of Data
Titktok’s data collection goes beyond knowing which content you prefer by tracking what content you like, comment on or share.
In its privacy policy, Tiktok clearly states that it has access to collect information in the context of composing and sending a message within the app. The composing part is the most worrying since it also collects data on content and messages you wrote but didn’t share.
It doesn’t stop at that, it takes full advantage of permissions to collect information about your phone’s model, screen resolution, current OS, phone number, email address, location, and even contact list. The parent company ByteDance reportedly tried/tries to target specific individuals as well: TikTok Parent ByteDance Planned To Use TikTok To Monitor The Physical Location Of Specific American Citizens
TikTok’s Littered With Security Vulnerabilities
For the past years, security researchers have found multiple vulnerabilities within the app’s security. TikTok has access to a lot of personal information, and it became the favorite route for many hackers.
The social media app is using an insecure HTTP connection to deliver videos instead of the more secure alternative HTTPS.
For example, hackers have found a way to hack users by sending text messages that allows them to access your account as discovered by Microsoft
Final words:
To sum it up, Tiktok is a danger to your privacy and the bottom line is quite simple. You should not have an account, you should not have the app on your phone, and you should not encourage other users to sign up.
Here’s more on TikTok: