TikTok and privacy: Would the popular app
give your data to China?
By USA Today, adapted by Newsela staff on 08.10.20
Word Count 805
Level 1050L
Image 1. The TikTok logo is displayed on an Apple iPhone. On August 6, 2020, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that bans
any transactions between the parent company of TikTok, ByteDance, and U.S. citizens due to what he called national security reasons.
Photo: Kon Karampelas on Unsplash
if anyone has the credibility to talk about this, it's probably her.
Karen North is a mom to two teenagers and a professor of social media at the University of
Southern California. She told her kids they could have any application, or app, on their phones,
except one.
That would be the wildly popular TikTok. Young people love it for making quick, funny videos,
often set to music.
North's reason is that their data is being collected and the company doesn't have to follow United
States privacy laws. In the U.S., these laws protect a person's personal information.
TikTok is owned by ByteDance, which is a Chinese company. Should the Chinese communist
government demand data be handed over, ByteDance would have no choice but to agree, says
North. Communism, one way of thinking about a government's role in the economy, is a system
where the government controls almost everything.
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However, TikTok denies this. It said it stores data in the U.S. and Singapore, and adds that if asked
by the Chinese government to hand over data, that it wouldn't do so.
President Trump Considers Banning TikTok
President Donald Trump initially said he would sign an executive order blocking the operation of
TikTok in the United States. Within days, Microsoft said it would buy the U.S. operations of
TikTok instead. The company hopes to complete the deal by September.
Trump said August 6 he'd go through with the executive order blocking TikTok if no deal happens
within 45 days.
Meanwhile, parents might be wondering what exactly
is the problem with TikTok?
Unlike Facebook and Instagram, you're free to watch
TikTok videos without registering, which means no
data collection. However, if you want to create a video
and share it, or comment on someone's video, then
you must share your personal information. Your age,
phone number and e-mail address are all required to
register.
From there, TikTok freely admits it collects
information shared from third-party social network providers and technical and behavioral
information. This includes your location, what videos you watch and like and "your use of the
Platform." It continues, "we also collect information contained in the messages you send through
our Platform and information from your phone book."
That's a lot.
Privacy Laws Vary From Nation To Nation
North says that because China has different privacy laws than the U.S., she's cautious about the
app. "I would say the same thing about any foreign app," she says. "Angry Birds is from Finland.
How are the privacy laws there?"
Might there be a ban on all apps from China? TikTok, which has reaped over 800 million
downloads, is currently the number 5 most downloaded app on Apptopia's charts, which measures
app data. WeChat and QQ, two social media communication apps, are both owned by Tencent, a
Chinese company.
In a speech in early August, United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said all "untrusted"
Chinese apps should be removed from U.S. app stores. "With parent companies based in China,
apps like TikTok, WeChat and others are significant threats to the personal data of American
citizens," Pompeo said.
The information collected by TikTok is similar to what's gathered by Facebook. Security researcher
Patrick Jackson of security app Disconnect, says Facebook does more problematic things with it,
simply because it's so much bigger. Facebook boasts of over 2 billion users.
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"The sheer volume of what's collected can't be compared," he says. "What's bigger than using your
data to influence an election, which Facebook did in 2016." Facebook users' data was taken
without consent by a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, for political advertising.
In early August Facebook introduced a TikTok clone for its Instagram app called Reels.
In an April 2020 blog post, TikTok said it was doing everything it could to keep the U.S. data out
of Chinese hands. "Our goal is to minimize data access across regions." It explains, "for example,
employees in the (Asia-Pacific) region, including China, would have very minimal access to user
data from the (European Union) and U.S."
However, there is a difference between "minimal" and "none."
Jackson Offers Advice For Parents And Children
Jackson suggests that parents counsel their kids to only use TikTok to watch videos, so less data
can be compiled on them. Additionally, users can opt to have their account be listed as "private,"
and only select certain friends to gain viewing access.
North says that if the Microsoft deal goes through, she'll be happy to let her kids download TikTok.
"(If) they own it, they have the data on U.S. servers and follow U.S. laws, and I'm fine with it," she
says.
Microsoft has long been a company that focused on business. "Where they need help is with the
next generation, young people," says North. "This could get them there."
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