TikTok answers three big cybersecurity fears about the app

TikTok has faced criticism from many who accuse the platform of excessively collecting user data. This claim is often supported by a cybersecurity report released in July 2022 by Internet 2.0, an Australian cybersecurity firm. The report found that TikTok was harvesting an excessive amount of data, including user location, device information, and the list of apps installed on the device.

However, another study conducted by Citizen Lab reported that TikTok’s data collection practices were similar to those of other popular social media platforms. Similarly, a recent report by the Georgia Institute of Technology found that most other social media and mobile apps engage in similar data collection practices. Therefore, it can be argued that TikTok’s data collection practices are not unique to the platform.

Although many privacy experts are concerned, most users accept that social networks require access to personal data in exchange for free services. This data is used for advertising on the platform and sold to other companies for targeted advertising elsewhere on the internet.

Critics of TikTok specifically focus on the fact that it is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, making it unique among mainstream apps. Other US-founded apps like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube collect similar amounts of data. For years, lawmakers assumed that data collected by these platforms would not be used for nefarious purposes that could pose a risk to national security.

Former US President Donald Trump’s 2020 executive order argued that TikTok’s data collection could potentially be used by China for tracking federal employees, building dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and corporate espionage.

While evidence of this has yet to be seen, concerns are fueled by a vaguely worded piece of Chinese law from 2017. Article seven of China’s National Intelligence Law requires all Chinese organizations and citizens to “support, assist and co-operate” with Chinese intelligence efforts. This sentence is often cited by people who are suspicious of all Chinese companies, not just TikTok.

However, researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology argue that this sentence is taken out of context, and note that the law also includes caveats protecting the rights of users and private companies.

TikTok executives have repeatedly assured users since 2020 that Chinese staff cannot access the data of non-Chinese users. However, in December, ByteDance admitted that several Beijing-based employees accessed the data of at least two US journalists and a “small number” of others to track their locations and to check whether they were meeting TikTok employees suspected of leaking information to the media. TikTok has stated that the employees who accessed the data were dismissed in December.

TikTok is also in talks with the US government to store all user data in the US instead of China, and has been routing all US data through US-based servers since last summer. Additionally, the company is creating data stores around the world, including in Ireland, where UK user data is processed.

Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Christopher Wray, expressed concerns to US lawmakers in November 2022 that the Chinese government could manipulate TikTok’s recommendation algorithm for “influence operations”. These concerns are heightened by the fact that Douyin, TikTok’s sister app available only in China, is heavily censored and designed to promote educational and wholesome content. In China, all social networks are heavily censored by an army of internet police who delete any content critical of the government or that may incite political unrest.

While there have been cases of censorship on TikTok in the past, including the suspension of a user’s account for discussing Beijing’s treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, there have been few recent cases of censorship on the platform. Citizen Lab compared TikTok and Douyin and found that TikTok does not engage in political censorship. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology also searched for topics such as the independence of Taiwan or jokes about Chinese Premier Xi Jinping and concluded that videos on these topics can easily be found on TikTok and are widely shared.

The overall impression is that of hypothetical concerns and risks. Critics argue that TikTok is a “Trojan horse” and could become a potent weapon in times of conflict, for instance.

Although the app is already banned in India, the impact of a US ban on TikTok would be significant because typically US allies tend to follow such decisions.

This was evident when the US successfully led calls to exclude Chinese telecom giant Huawei from being deployed in 5G infrastructure, again based on hypothetical risks.

It is worth noting, however, that these risks are one-sided. China is not concerned about US apps because access for Chinese citizens has been blocked for many years.