TikTok is undoubtedly a fun app to use, but if you’re concerned about your privacy, you might want to stop using it, or at least recording yourself with it. According to a report, there is a change to TikTok’s user privacy policy in which the company essentially gave itself permission to collect your biometric data.
- New policy: A change to TikTok’s U.S. privacy policy introduced a new section that says the social video app “may collect biometric identifiers and biometric information” from its users’ content. This includes things like “faceprints and voiceprints,” the policy explained. The biometric data collection details were introduced in the newly added section, “Image and Audio Information” found under the heading of “Information we collect automatically” in the policy.
- What TikTok has to say: Reached for comment, TikTok could not confirm what product developments necessitated the addition of biometric data to its list of disclosures about the information it automatically collects from users but said it would ask for consent in the case such data collection practices began. TikTok spokesperson could not offer more details on the company’s plans for biometric data collection or how it may tie into either current or future products.
- Biometric concern: The first part of the new section explains that TikTok may collect information about the images and audio that are in users’ content, “such as identifying the objects and scenery that appear, the existence and location within an image of the face and body features and attributes, the nature of the audio, and the text of the words spoken in your User Content.”
- Better understanding: “As part of our ongoing commitment to transparency, we recently updated our Privacy Policy to provide more clarity on the information we may collect,” the spokesperson said. TikTok’s latest Transparency Report and the recently launched privacy and security hub, which is aimed at helping people better understand their privacy choices on the app.
- Future of TikTok: The biometric disclosure comes at a time when TikTok has been working to regain the trust of some U.S. users. Under the Trump administration, the federal government attempted to ban TikTok from operating in the U.S. entirely, calling the app a national security threat because of its ownership by a Chinese company. TikTok fought back against the ban and went on record to state it only stores TikTok U.S. user data in its U.S. data centers and in Singapore.
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