In early August, US President Donald Trump launched a war against the Chinese social networking application TikTok. The planetary leader wants the popular platform to stop its activity in America.
The deadline given by Donald Trump expires on September 15, with Microsoft and Twitter interested in acquiring the application. If TikTok is sold to a US company, it will be able to continue operating in the US.
Illegal data collection
A recent report shows that TikTok has been collecting MAC addresses of its users for at least 15 months. The specific action of the platform was stopped on November 18, 2019, after an upgrade made by the company.
The above act of TikTok violates the terms of the Play Store. In 2015, Google banned apps distributed through its store from linking users to personal information or data related to devising identification, including MAC and IMEI addresses.
However, TikTok utilized a loop that allows data to be collected when the user first opens the application before he or she even consents. In this way, ByteDance collected the device ID and MAC addresses.
Hide using encryption
TikTok utilizes an unusual additional encryption layer to hide the data it collects from its users. Researchers note that such an encryption layer offers nothing to the security of users.
However, it helps the platform to hide the information it processes from third parties. Thus, no one can know if it violates the terms of use and privacy policy.
The company claims that it does not collect users’ MAC addresses. However, he declined to comment on whether he had done so in the past.
