There is no stone left unturned when you get in the US government crosshairs, and when you are as high profile as TikTok, the scrutiny sooner or later unearths a wrongdoing or two. The popular short and often funny videossharing app is getting into its next round of hot water, and is following a familiar press coverage path, one that we witnessed with Huawei, and which ended up in an Android ban on its phones.
It’s now the Wall Street Journal’s turn with an exclusive TikTok privacy and security scare, this time for collecting user data with a practice that has been “banned by Google.” Yep, we are talking about TikTok’s Android app here, and the gist of it includes a whole lot of innuendo and an admission that TikTok has actually ended the practice way back in November.
The tactic, which experts in mobile-phone security said was concealed through an unusual added layer of encryption, appears to have violated Google policies limiting how apps track people and wasn’t disclosed to TikTok users.
While it’s a long road from collecting identifiers like MAC addresses for marketing and advertising purposes which seems to be a common practice where TikTok’s parent company originates from, the revelation comes at a bad time for the app.
The US has set its sight on its growing popularity among US teens, and has decided that it is next on the chopping block altar of the geopolitical struggle between the two countries. TikTok’s claims that it actually collects less data than Facebook and even Google, which nobody in the government seems to have a problem with, will most likely fall on dead ears, and it may ultimately be forced to divest its US business.
Apple already denied interest, but Microsoft and Twitter are reportedly circling the wagons around the idea for a TikTok US acquisition. For what it’s worth, TikTok says that it is “committed to protecting the privacy and safety of the TikTok community. Like our peers, we constantly update our app to keep up with evolving security challenges, the current version of TikTok does not collect MAC addresses.”
This is unlikely to take the administration’s China hawks off its back, though, and one of those, Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.), is already on record commenting the just-in-time WSJ revelations on a long-abandoned practice:
Google needs to mind its store, and TikTok shouldn’t be on it. If Google is telling users they won’t be tracked without their consent and knowingly allows apps like TikTok to break its rules by collecting persistent identifiers, potentially in violation of our children’s privacy laws, they’ve got some explaining to do.
Source: Phonearena
Comments