Is TikTok safe? It's as safe as just about any other social media platform. It doesn't infect your phone with malware, but it comes with some safety risks like scams and saved user data.
Long-Term Repercussions of TikTok. Using TikTok regularly, either as a consumer or content creator, increases your digital footprint. On its own, this poses great risks such as being more prone to phishing attacks and stalking. This is an important reason why you should care about your digital footprint.
TikTok's privacy policy also says the company collects your email address, phone number, age, search and browsing history, information about what's in the photos and videos you upload, and if you consent, the contents of your device's clipboard so that you can copy and paste information into the app.
“We are a global company,” Mr Hunter said. “For Australians, the user data is held in the US and Singapore with strong cyber security to make sure the data is safe. “There are lot of misperceptions around what happens on TikTok, but Australians are safe on TikTok.”
TikTok could very likely capture the card details of multiple users using account credentials, very likely giving TikTok access to the user's bank account and payment history.
Fact: TikTok's parent company ByteDance Ltd. was founded by Chinese entrepreneurs, but today, roughly sixty percent of the company is beneficially owned by global institutional investors such as Carlyle Group, General Atlantic, and Susquehanna International Group.
The danger TikTok poses to Australia is that the means would exist for foreign intelligence agencies to track the location of government officials, build dossiers of personal information, and conduct espionage.
Why are governments banning TikTok? It all comes down to China. Lawmakers and regulators in the West have increasingly expressed concern that TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, may put sensitive user data, like location information, into the hands of the Chinese government.
Close to 40% of the Adult population are using TikTok, or nearly 30% of all Australians, with 8.5 million Australians active on the platform every single month.
TikTok receives information including a person's IP address, their web browsing habits and search history, though some privacy settings can override how much data is tracked.
Data-driven algorithm and intrusive tracking
Scroll through its feed long enough and you'll be bombarded with content carefully chosen for you. That's because TikTok uses a sophisticated algorithm to gather a vast amount of users' data, both inside and outside the app, to build an accurate profile.
But Facebook still collects more data than TikTok. Same goes for Google, which tries to record a history of where you go and all the pages you visit in its Chrome Web browser. We did not find evidence that TikTok collects your precise location, an especially sensitive type of data that Facebook and Google do collect.
It's normal for TikTok to ask you to verify your age, as there are different rules and features available on the site for different ages. In October 2022, the app announced they would be raising the minimum age requirement to host a live from 16 to 18.
What's the big deal? TikTok is a national security threat. The Chinese-owned social media platform's parent company ByteDance is based in Beijing and is required by Chinese law to give the government access to collected data.
Members of Congress accused TikTok of collecting user data, failing to moderate content, putting minors at risk, and providing the Chinese government with access to private user information. All social media platforms, from Meta to Google and Twitter, collect user data.
Privacy rights. Critics of TikTok have accused the app of mass data collection, particularly in the U.S., where there are no general federal privacy rights for citizens. In jurisdictions that do have strict privacy laws, TikTok faces widespread allegations of failing to comply with them.
“In Australia, TikTok collects approximate location information based on users' device or network information, such as SIM card and IP address.
If you violated TikTok's community guidelines, you'll be given a warning. The warning tells you that your account is at risk of being blocked from some features. For example, you can be blocked from posting for several days.
In addition, there have been concerns about the app's data privacy practices, with some experts warning that user data could be vulnerable to hacking and surveillance. TikTok has also been criticized for its content moderation practices.
I'm a senior writer covering social media and online culture. TikTok's Project Texas is focused on cordoning off American user data from China. Lawmakers have expressed doubts that such a firewall is technically possible.
TikTok has announced that it's expanding its audience controls feature, giving creators the ability to restrict their videos to adult viewers. Prior to this expansion, the adult-only audience controls feature was only available for TikTok Live. Now the company is bringing the feature to its short-form videos as well.
The first thing you should know is that TikTok collects information from its users, such as: Personal information: TikTok will keep any personal information you disclose when you create an account, such as your username, password, birthday, email address, phone number, or anything you disclose in your profile bio.