If a user changes privacy settings to avoid that scrutiny, the app persistently asks for that permission to be restored. Other social networking apps, like Facebook, don’t ask users to revise their privacy settings if they lock down their information.

How TikTok handles the data it collects from users also raises concerns. Ireland’s data protection regulator, for instance, is investigating possible illegal transfers of European citizens’ data to Chinese servers and potential violations of rules protecting children’s privacy.

As with other social media services, researchers have found serious vulnerabilities with TikTok.

In 2020, cybersecurity company Check Point found that it could send users messages that looked as if they came from TikTok but actually contained malicious links. When users clicked on those links, Check Point’s researchers could seize control of their TikTok accounts, get access to private information, delete existing content and even post new material under that user’s account.

Hackers have also taken advantage of viral TikTok trends to distribute malicious software that creates additional cybersecurity problems. For instance, a trend called the “Invisible Challenge” encouraged users to use a TikTok filter called “Invisible Body” to film themselves naked – assuring users their followers would only see a blurry image, not anything revealing.

Cybercriminals created TikTok videos that claimed they had made software that would reveal users’ nude bodies by reversing the body-masking filter. But the software they encouraged users to download actually just stole people’s social media, credit card and cryptocurrency credentials from elsewhere on their phones, as well as files from victims’ computers.

Many U.S. lawmakers have objected to the app’s location tracking services, saying it could allow the Chinese government to monitor the movements and locations of U.S. citizens – including members of the military or government officials.

If the Chinese government wants information about the more than 90 million TikTok users, it does not need to hack anything.

That’s because China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law requires Chinese companies to share any data they collect if the government asks.

Technology industry observers have also raised concerns that ByteDance, the company that makes TikTok, may be partially owned by the Chinese government.

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