In a shocking report, it has been revealed that the major video creation and sharing platform TikTok uses features that spy on users’ sensitive data. The Chinese company has been facing a lot of brunt from its Indian users as people continue to boycott the use of the app.
The privacy concerns regarding TikTok were revealed by developers who were testing the latest beta version of iOS 14. TikTok had reported last year that it had stopped practicing the data collection feature. However, that does not appear to be the case – the video sharing app continues to collect data from phones.
Apple introduced new privacy control features in iOS 14 to help more control over the data that is being shared with apps. The feature revealed that TikTok was collecting data from the clipboard every few keystrokes. It has been reported that the TikTok app continues to collect data even when it is running in the background.
“Following the beta release of iOS 14 on June 22, users saw notifications while using a number of popular apps. For TikTok, this was triggered by a feature designed to identify repetitive, spammy behavior,” the spokesperson said, adding that the company was “committed to protecting users’ privacy and being transparent about how our app works.”
In iOS 14, a notification pops up whenever an app tries to access the clipboard of the phone. It has been reported that TikTok continues to collect data after every few keystrokes making the app totally insecure to have installed.
Following the outbreak of the news reporting the unfair practices TikTok uses in its app, the company has reported that it has pushed a new update to the app in Apple’s App Store which will stop the app from collecting data from clipboard.
The data collection feature was never introduced on the Android application, according to TikTok.
