The TikTok test

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to several Western governments, including in Washington, the app poses real national security risks. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese IT company, and Western concerns fall primarily along two lines: that the app harvests too much data from users, and that the Chinese government can access this data and use it for nefarious purposes, if it wishes.

And India banned the app over national security reasons in June 2020, in response to a border clash with China.

TikTok is also forming a bigger part of Americans' news diets - according to Pew this year, 33 per cent of adult users say that they regularly get news from TikTok...Given this ubiquity, one concern has been that TikTok was censoring and moderating content, including on issues sensitive to China, and that Beijing could use TikTok to bolster its public image in the US....TikTok had engaged in censorship on topics ranging from LGBTQ+ issues to the repression of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang.

TikTok's own privacy policy states that it automatically collects users' approximate and precise locations, keystroke patterns, biometric data such as faceprints and voiceprints, and even information identifying objects and scenery that appear in image and video uploads.

"Once accessed by personnel in Beijing, there is no check on the... Communist Party (of China) using the extensive, private and sensitive data about US users for espionage activities because compliance with the People's Republic of China's 2017 National Intelligence law is mandatory in China

Qn: Is privacy becoming a thing of the past in today’s world? (SAJC Prelim 2022)