Seeking permission is a joke
Have you ever used Tik Tok? If yes, so when you created a fresh account, you must've given a green light to the app for using your camera, microphone and external memory. Of course,
that’s a common phenomenon for most apps to ask for. Now what isn’t common, and
you did not allow is to access your location, did you? That is one thing, Tik Tok
does not need your permission for. Shocked right? Let us go in the depth and find out
how is that possible. For that, those with a Tik Tok account, can go to the app
permissions section of your phone and try to find out the location
option for Tik Tok? To your utter surprise, you won’t find it because it dosen’t
exist. Immediately turn off the location of your phone. Will that help? The
answer is no.
Tik Tok is the smartest of all
Even most advanced apps like 'Google maps' do not work if the location is off,
but Tik tok is a bit different. It will still show you trending videos in your
area. How?
To find that we’ll have to use a VPN (Virtual Private Network). VPNs are
often used by teenagers to access age restricted websites but in our case,
we will use it on our phone to set up a foreign location, say for example Germany.
Every other app including YouTube will now start showing German centric content
but Tik Tok will very easily surpass that VPN and continue suggesting regional videos, no matter what language you choose in the app. In this case you fed German as
your language of choice, but you will still get to see English videos. Tik Tok can make that
possible by accessing data directly from your Sim card. Isn't it very unethical of
a video sharing app to do that? Certainly, at this point you may want to know, How
am I the only one suffering if more than a billion people use Tik Tok? That’s right
not only one person is suffers, the way Tik Tok gets access to your
credentials is potentially dangerous for a wider audience.
Tik Tok's strange policy
The privacy policy of Tik Tok mentions that all your personal data gets
collected automatically. Linking social media handles will give access to all
personal details without any warning. Besides that Tik Tok uses http
(Not secured) servers for content delivery instead of https (secured ones). Hackers
can make an easy win into your personal life by hacking these servers. Even deleting
your account will become a substandard move because Tik Tok can still use your data at
it’s own disposal.
How does Tik Tok screw you?
Remember Facebook and Cambridge Analytica data breach scandal.
Millions of Facebook accounts were hacked and got predominantly used for political
advertising. AI (Artificial intelligence) can be used to filter what you see. While watching any clipping on Tik Tok, you become part of a detailed survey
which helps in understanding your preferences, likes and dislikes, agreements
and disagreements and and your overall personality. The parent company
of Tik Tok ‘ByteDance’ is an AI company, so imagine what the consequences could be. On the Internet there is a rat race in Artificial Intelligence. What happens is that you become a product for a global race to
gain superiority in AI technology. The whole point over
here is not to criticize this particular video sharing app, but is to raise a question on data privacy.
Whether to delete Tik Tok or not is for you to decide…
What you can do is take these following precautions:-
1. If you use free apps, so don’t operate internet banking or digital payment apps on your phone.
2. When creating
an account, don’t use Google or Facebook to sign in.
3. Use a
different password for every new account.
4. Keep your
emails safe and change their passwords regularly.
Every kind of Free app maybe amazing to use, but all of them come at some hidden costs so Be Safe...
Very informative
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