Why a ban on TikTok wont solve all data privacy concerns
Why a ban on TikTok wont solve all data privacy concerns
Nation
Mar 30, 2023 9:23 AM EDT
While more than 150 million monthly users are reportedly watching TikTok in the United States, the social media app is also currently capturing the attention of American lawmakers. TikTok CEO Shou Chews first appearance before Congress last Thursday was met with bipartisan scrutiny, concerns about data privacy and calls for the Chinese-owned app to be banned in the U.S.
PBS NewsHour digital anchor Nicole Ellis spoke with Caitriona Fitzgerald, deputy director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, about the ways personal data gathered by social media apps could be used, and the latest on a possible ban.
Watch the conversation in the player above.
Collecting data isnt unique to TikTok
TikTok is just one app in a vast, commercial surveillance ecosystem, Fitzgerald said. A 2022 study by Consumer Reports found that TikTok is using the same data-tracking practices as Facebook/Meta and others collecting information about your online and offline activities: your location, what other websites youre visiting, and what links you click on. TikTok, like most U.S. tech companies, collects a huge amount of data about us both while users are on the app and via trackers on other websites, so they know what youre reading outside the app, Fitzgerald said. Tech companies, including TikTok, take the data from your online activity and combine it with the data it collects about you on the app and use it to create profiles in order to target you with ads.
National security and TikTok
Despite the ubiquity of data collection on American devices, TikTok is raising unique national security concerns because it is owned by the China-based company ByteDance. Tensions between the U.S. and China have escalated recently, spurred by Chinas strengthening of its relationship with Russia and a suspected Chinese spy balloon that traversed sensitive military sites across North America before being shot down by the military. The link to China is the reason that Congress is talking about a TikTok ban, Fitzgerald said, adding Chinese law requires Chinese companies and citizens to assist with Chinese intelligence work. This could potentially allow the Chinese government unfettered access to data held by any Chinese company so that China could use TikTok user data to target individuals for blackmail, or recruit spies. During the nearly five hours of questioning before the House panel on March 23, TikTok CEO Chew said that the app, and its parent company ByteDance had not spied on Americans at the direction of the Chinese Communist Party.
In his prepared remarks to the House, Chew also wrote; TikTok has never shared, or received a request to share, US user data with the Chinese government. Nor would TikTok honour such a request if one were ever made, a sentiment he echoed several times throughout the hearing.
About 7 of 10 U.S. adults said in the latest PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll that TikTok poses a threat to national security. A majority said they support a government ban on the app.
Is a ban possible and would it actually work?
At least 14 states have already banned the use of TikTok on government-issued devices. In late December, Congress passed a ban of the app on all federal government devices, and in late February, the White House gave a 30-day timeline for federal staff to follow through. Fitzgerald says a broader ban is possible, but it wouldnt prevent TikTok or any other foreign adversaries from accessing Americans personal data. Even if Congress bans TikTok, millions of apps would still collect the most intimate details about us and profit off of them, and the endless web of data brokers who buy and sell our personal data would continue to exist, she said.
Privacy laws
Fitzgerald says the only way to make a meaningful change is for Congress to pass a privacy law that applies to all apps. The American Data Privacy and Protection Act, a long-simmering federal data privacy law, advanced further than it had previously in the last Congress, though it failed to get a vote by the time lawmakers adjourned in December. Several states have taken up their own versions of the regulations. This session, the bill is gaining new momentum and bipartisan support. It was considered in a House subcommittee hearing earlier this month. Fitzgerald is hopeful that Congress will move on that this session by putting rules in place that would protect Americans privacy and national security.
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Go Deeper
Thursday, March 30, 2023 at 1:23 pm