In 2019 TikTok, the popular video-sharing service was accused of illegally taking information from users and sending it to China, where ByteDance, the app’s parent company is based.
This led two U.S. senators to call for an investigation into the platform’s data collection methods, which inspired researchers at Check Point, an Israeli software company, to do an investigation of their own.
This uncovered several major security flaws that might have allowed hackers to access all sorts of valuable info. So, what exactly is TikTok doing with our data?
- Is TikTok stealing my information?
On January 1st, the social networking service updated its privacy policy, to state what information gets collected from users and how the company uses and shares that information once it’s harvested. “We collect information when you create an account and use the platform,” the policy page on the app’s official website reads.
“We also collect information you share with us from third-party social network providers, and technical and behavioral information about your use of the platform. We also collect information contained in the messages you send through our platform and information from your phone book, if you grant us access to your phone book on your mobile device.”
Not only does this include information provided by a user when he or she registers for the app (such as name, age, email, and phone number), but it also includes data taken from various social media sources like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram if an account holder chooses to link TikTok with other platforms.
- How is TikTok using my data?
According to the privacy policy, the app utilises your information “to fulfill requests for products, services, platform functionality, support and information for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical, and survey purposes and to solicit your feedback.”
It also allows the company to provide customised content, such as relevant promotional materials, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. TikTok’s connection to China is not mentioned on their privacy page.
As for the cybersecurity issues detected by Check Point earlier this year, TikTok claimed it had fixed all the problems addressed in the software provider’s report before the company publicised its findings.
“TikTok is committed to protecting user data. Like many organisations, we encourage responsible security researchers to privately disclose zero day vulnerabilities to us,” Luke Deshotels, a member of TikTok’s security team, said in a January press release.
“Before public disclosure, Check Point agreed that all reported issues were patched in the latest version of our app. We hope that this successful resolution will encourage future collaboration with security researchers.”
