TikTok, TikTok, TikTok...
The year 2018 has not been a good one for the public relations department of Facebook. All year, concerns about data security and privacy issues have been in the public spotlight. Nevertheless, Facebook recently decided to increase its data collection activities for internal purposes while blocking outsiders from getting that data. In other words, Facebook is working towards getting monopoly access to private user data on its platform.
Seemingly unrelated, we published our report on China last week (available online here) where we warned of the coming cold war between China and the US. This cold war is currently fought over IT and telecom infrastructure, but of course it is really about access to data, the oil of the 21st century. Many western companies like Facebook are not allowed to operate in China, providing Chinese software companies a closed market and the Chinese government largely unhindered access to private data of its citizens. There have been reports that Tencent and Alibaba help the Chinese government in activities ranging from fighting crime to silencing dissent and monitoring activities that could potentially pose a threat to the government. And if you buy a car in China, chances are that it will send its location data to government-backed monitoring centres. Manufacturers from Tesla, to Volkswagen, Daimler, BMW, Ford and General Motors all provide access of location data to these monitoring centres.
Now imagine what might happen if these two developments merge. For instance, a social media app could send private user data to China giving the government access to information that can be used to monitor everything from current locations to political opinions and the circle of friends and acquaintances you meet. No need for spies and stakeouts, your phone will do the spying all by itself. Sounds scary? Guess what, it is already becoming reality.
In early 2018, the social media app Grindr, popular with gay people all over the world, was acquired by Chinese company Kunlun Group and the company management has been taken over by Chinese executives providing an opening for the Chinese government to identify gay and bisexual people in China and the West and use this information for potentially nefarious goals.
More recently, a new social media app called TikTok has taken the US and Europe by storm. TikTok is an app for sharing videos. The app has become popular because it allows people to lip sync or dance to music chosen on the app. The app is obviously popular with teenagers and young adults and has become the most downloaded app in Apple’s app store in the first half of 2018 (surpassing Facebook, Youtube and Instagram during that time period) and the most downloaded app in the US in October 2018, accounting for c. 30% of downloads of social media platforms on iPhones in the US.
The problem with TikTok is that it is the Chinese app Douyin that was launched in China in 2016 and has more than 150 million daily active users in China. For its international expansion, the app was rebranded as TikTok a year later. The company states in its privacy policy that data may be transferred to China, which is legal as long as users consent to the policy (which they must in order to use the app in the first place).
What makes this software scary is not so much that the personal data of millions of teenagers ends up on Chinese servers. The scary part is that the app has become very popular with members of the US military. Soldiers film themselves in their bases, singing in their uniforms with the ID tags visible or performing fitness exercises on the base. Translation: They are transmitting information about their location, their military ID, their unit and the inside of a military base straight to China. Helpful – particularly if the service member is part of a special ops unit stationed on a secret military base. Last year, journalists rang the alarm bell when they noticed that the location of military bases and patrol routes could be seen by anyone because soldiers were sharing their fitness data from Fitbits and other devices on the social network Strava. History really does repeat itself. First as tragedy, then as farce.