The United States and other countries have questioned the app of Chinese origin.
The TikTok controversy continues , with the app being questioned and banned from government devices by authorities from several countries, but mainly from the United States .
This has even led to the possibility of TikTok being banned by the United States.
The Chinese origin of TikTok , owned by ByteDance and the alleged intensive data collection are the main arguments for this offensive.
TikTok: What data does it actually collect?
The security consultancy Pradeo analyzed TikTok . This is the data it collects.
- Geolocation.
- Identification data: name, email, physical addresses, telephone number, age range, date of birth.
- Messages.
- Photos and videos.
- Audio.
- Contact list.
- Browsing history.
- Information to identify device.
Pradeo indicates that this information is collected by TikTok and sent to its servers in the United States and Singapore. Then ByteDance employees can consult it from Brazil, Canada, China, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and the United States.
Is TikTok a leakware?
Pradeo believes that TikTok collects a lot of personal data that is not necessary for its operation. It is a leakware , a new definition recently coined.
“The results of our analysis are unequivocal: TikTok collects a lot of personal data that is not necessary for its operation. By definition, this puts TikTok in the category of Leakware , aka Greyware . This term refers to apps that massively collect their users’ data and send it out of their devices. For the first time this year, Gartner included the concept of Leakware in its Market Guide for Defense against Mobile Threats”, says Pradeo .