TikTok Doesn’t Appear to Take Any More of Your Data Than Facebook
TikTok has become one of the world’s most popular apps by serving up a steady beat of lip-syncing videos and viral memes. But behind the scenes the company, owned by one of China’s biggest tech firms, is also scooping up massive amounts of data on Americans and tracking users’ every move.
Security researchers say TikTok’s information-collection practices are consistent with Facebook Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and other U.S. tech companies looking to tailor ads and services to their users. The bigger issue lies in what TikTok does with the intel it gathers. Some groups, like the Democratic and Republican national committees and Wells Fargo & Co., have discouraged or banned people from using the app.
“The problem here is not the quantity of data that’s being collected, but rather who else can access it. And those problems exist on the end of data transmission that no one but TikTok can see,” said Oded Vanunu, head of products vulnerability research at Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., who discovered a security hole in the app last year that has since been resolved.
There’s little doubt the backlash against TikTok stems in part from the ongoing economic and political rivalry between Washington and Beijing. When U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said that they were considering banning the app last week, both indicated such a move would be one way to retaliate against China over its handling of the coronavirus.
The company, part of ByteDance Ltd. and incorporated in the Cayman Islands, has consistently denied that it hands over data to Beijing and has taken measures to try to distance itself from its Chinese roots. ByteDance is considering changing TikTok’s corporate structure to include a new management board and a separate global headquarters, people familiar with the plans said last week. In June, former Walt Disney Co. executive Kevin Mayer became TikTok’s first American chief executive officer.
U.S. officials haven’t provided any proof publicly that TikTok is sharing information with the Chinese government. The company says American user data is stored in servers in the U.S. and Singapore, not China.
TikTok’s terms of service do, however, stipulate that the company may share information with its parent, subsidiary or other affiliate. Previous versions of TikTok’s privacy policy warned users it could exchange information with its Chinese businesses, law enforcement agencies and public authorities, if legally required to do so.
Another reason why TikTok prompts more concern than other social media sites is that the app, which counts more than 2 billion users worldwide including 165 million American users, has attracted a large proportion of young people.
TikTok starts collecting data the minute you download the app, according to researchers. It tracks the websites you’re browsing and how you type, down to keystroke rhythms and patterns, according to the company’s privacy policies and terms of service. The app warns users it has full access to photos, videos and contact information of friends stored in the device’s address book, unless you revoke those permissions.
Even when you’re not singing and dancing around your living room, the app tracks everywhere you go using your IP address and GPS coordinates, providing the app with your precise location while working, voting, attending protests, traveling, or simply picking up milk from the grocery store. You can disable all GPS collection on your devices, but that would shut off access to apps that need location data to function, like Google maps.
Once you use TikTok for a few days, the app has a good idea of what you look like, how you hold your phone, who your friends are, what videos you like to watch, what topics you’re interested in and what websites you visit. It reads the messages you compose and exchange on the app. TikTok can then match this data to other information collected about users from third-party services and publicly available sources.
TikTok’s iPhone version verifies users and their devices using an authentication tool researchers have identified as vulnerable to a malicious cyber attack, according to a report by cybersecurity firm Zimperium Inc. TikTok hasn’t been used as a platform to launch such an attack, according to ZecOps, a sister company to Zimperium.
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