TikTok privacy concerns: What Australians need to know

There are calls to ban the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok in Australia.

A report prepared by Australian-US cyber security firm Internet 2.0 warns that the video app harvests vast amounts of personal data that could be used by Beijing for intelligence purposes or cyber-hacking.

CEO of Internet 2.0, Robert Potter, says his research shows TikTok “gathers a lot more data than they say it does”.

“When you have it open it has permission to read the entire hard drive of the phone, your calendar, your contacts list, all the photos on it,” he told Neil Mitchell.

“If they’re lying then that’s a big deal.”

Press PLAY below to hear what info TikTok collects and why that’s concerning

Professor of digital social media at University of Southern California, Karen North, agrees there are major privacy issues at play.

“When you download an app that’s not from your country you have to be aware it’s governed by the laws of the other country, and that includes the data privacy policies,” she told Ross and Russel.

“Most of the world is concerned about the data privacy issues with TikTok.

“Buzzfeed did an expose … and one of the things that they say is it’s really looking at the entire architecture of your entire phone … contacts, location, other apps, other pages that are open.

“If a dataset is being created about individuals that could be used in the future or used now, how much information do you want to disclose about yourself or about your child?”

Press PLAY below to hear why Professor North thinks you should think twice about downloading TikTok

In a statement, a TikTok spokesperson said the app is “not unique in the amount of information it collects”.

“TikTok user data is stored in Singapore and the US, and we have been clear and vocal about employing access controls like encryption and security monitoring to secure user data, with the access approval process overseen by our US-based security team. We continually encourage legitimate researchers to help validate our security standards, including industry-leading experts through reputable programs like HackerOne to help us test our defences,” the spokesperson said.