What Is Tik Tok Using Facial Recognition Data For?
Tik Tok has become quite the controversial social media app lately due to the fact that it originated in China and could have ties to the Chinese government. National security has become a growing concern as millions of Americans use this app daily, as well as the many companies that have joined the TikTok revolution. Not to mention the almost billion users around the globe that use Tik Tok. But that number may soon dwindle.
One of the biggest concerns with the app is the data recognition software that is activated and stores as users take photos and videos of of themselves, their friends, and the inside of their homes or other buildings. These pictures that include the inside of homes and buildings, especially that of politicians, celebrities, and other important people have many worried. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley referred to the app as a “Trojan horse on people’s phones.”, indicating that it could be used as a surveillance apparatus. With the country being under lock down, and many people are bored stuck at home, the app has grown dramatically in popularity during quarantine.
Tik Tok currently has 800 million users, about 10% of the world population, and has been downloaded over 2 billion times. That is an incredible amount of data for a social media platform to harvest, especially if it’s for nefarious reasons.
Tik Tok admits to collecting a large amount of data from their users, including facial data recognition. Although they have found themselves in hot water from the collection of this data. Illinois has a law that protect people’s biometric information (such as data from facial, fingerprint, and iris scans) and Tik Tok was found to be in violation of this and was sued by minors that lived in the state of Illinois. They were also hit with a biometric privacy class action lawsuit in California which stated ““Defendants do not inform the App’s users that their biometric data is being collected, captured, received, obtained, stored, and/or used by the App. Nor do Defendants disclose what they do with that data, who has access to that data, and whether, where, and for how long that data is stored.”
What effect will these lawsuits have on Tik Tok? Time will tell. In the mean time there are plenty of companies, organizations, and even countries that have taken the initiative and have outright banned Tik Tok from use. You can find a list of them here.