Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) responded to President Joe Biden’s campaign obtaining a TikTok account on NBC’s Meet The Press Now. He said he doesn’t use the app on his personal devices because, according to Biden’s FBI Director Christopher Wray, the app has security issues. Employees based in China can manipulate the app’s algorithm and access user data from the US.
ByteDance is the parent company of TikTok. Ultimately, Chris Wray has stated that it has national security implications since ByteDance is a People’s Republic of China (PRC) -based corporation subservient to the CCP. According to Krishnamoorthi, no member of Congress may use TikTok.
Regardless of whether you’ve engaged with TikTok, the app still holds your data, according to research from cybersecurity startup Feroot. The data is still being collected and sent despite removing the app.
According to the research, TikTok pixels or trackers may be found on websites in almost every industry. Even if they have nothing connected with the website owner’s day-to-day operations, the pixels/trackers often begin executing instantly.
According to Feroot, TikTok’s pixels (a component of the source code that imports into your web browser from other websites) are embedded on webpages of a wide range of industries like airlines, e-commerce sites, tech businesses, local, state, federal agencies, and more. They directly connect to data harvesting services that steal sensitive information such as individuals’ health records, financial details, and login credentials.
Sites that demand logins and authentication methods may believe they are bolstering security, but according to Feroot, TikTok’s pixels simply hoard all sorts of data, including names, passwords, and authentication codes.
According to the Feroot analysis, pixels routinely send data to countries like Russia and China before users can even provide their permission.
The research also reports that Google, Microsoft, and Meta are utilizing their tracking pixels all over the web.