REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, WASHINGTON — Video sharing app ICT Tac again in the spotlight after members of the United States (US) Congress invited CEO of TikTok Shou Zi Chew. He was asked to explain the security of the social media app.
The United States has also threatened to ban the app completely if the company remains under Chinese control. But before the United States decided that, many Western countries had already taken action against the Chinese technology company ByteDance.
Many people are concerned about the security of data collected by TikTok. This condition causes the app to be banned on Canadian, Belgian, Danish, New Zealand, Taiwanese, British and of course American government devices.
The European Union (EU) instructed its staff to remove apps from phones and recommended that they remove them from personal devices that had the official app installed. India banned TikTok outright for security reasons. Afghanistan has also banned it to prevent young people from being misled.
Security concerns concern the government in banning the download of apps that first appeared in 2016. FBI Director Chris Wray referred to China’s National Intelligence Act of 2017. He said the rules require companies to do whatever the government wants in terms of showing them information or serving as tools for the Chinese government.
TikTok collects the same type of user data as many other social media companies such as Facebook and Instagram. This data includes name, age, phone number, email address and photo. TikTok also has a tool that recommends music videos for users to watch called “For You”.
“It looks like a very efficient algorithm.”[Ini memiliki] great potential to spread Chinese influence and propaganda among young people in the West,” Cambridge and Edinburgh Universities professor Ross Anderson said as quoted by BBC.
But, according to Jake Moore, global security adviser at internet security firm ESET, there is no hard evidence that Beijing is using its tech companies for espionage. “There are concerns that companies like Huawei and TikTok have become so large that they can hack large amounts of data and harm national security,” he said.
“The government is right to take precautions against this now rather than later,” Moore said.
China’s Foreign Ministry has called the ban on TikTok and other tech companies political theater. “The United States overemphasizes national security concerns to pressure companies in other countries,” the agency said.
Meanwhile, TikTok insists on not collecting more data than other social media apps and on implementing a system independent of the government. While in 2022 some Chinese TikTok staff may be able to access user data collected in Europe, it is said to be working to protect such information in Europe.
The social media company also said that user data from the United States is currently processed through US servers and is not sent to China. TikTok has also launched a new strategy to manage how it stores and uses data called Project Clover.
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