TikTok - “massive-scale invasions of children’s privacy”

[Maxmars]

I am learning about the U.S. Department of Justice's case against TikTok... where there press releases allege a "massive-scale invasion of children's privacy."

This of course, is all something that had been 'not explicitly regulated' until 1998 when the legislature finally made a call and passed the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA)... From that point forward, any website operation online was lawfully required to conduct their data collection within specific parameters...

Briefly, COPPA created an obligation necessary to operate within our region... and apparently TikTok, by virtue of the primacy of it's corporate existence, resisted fulfilling that obligation (ostensibly until now.)  Billions have been poured into lobbying against this obligation, not just by TikTok, but by others as well.

From ArsTechnica: DOJ sues TikTok, alleging “massive-scale invasions of children’s privacy”
 

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...That's concerning because after the kids create the general account, TikTok then gathers even more information—"including usage information, device information, location data, image and audio information, metadata, and data from cookies and similar technologies that track users across different websites and platforms"—while allegedly turning a blind eye to kids dodging age-gates. In some cases prior to 2022, the DOJ alleged, TikTok allowed kids to create non-Kids Mode accounts by using login credentials from Google and Instagram that TikTok neglectfully marked as "age unknown."

Making things even worse, the DOJ alleged that TikTok chose to ignore the obvious problem of asking kids to self-report their ages, while earning ad revenue and sometimes sharing kids' data with third parties. And perhaps most concerning for parents who approved kids creating Kids Mode accounts to avoid such invasive targeting and data collection, the DOJ claimed that TikTok collects "several types of persistent identifiers from Kids Mode users without notifying parents or obtaining their consent, including IP address and unique device identifiers."

"Defendants did not need to collect all of the persistent identifiers they have collected from users in Kids Mode to operate the TikTok platform," the DOJ alleged. And "until at least mid-2020, Defendants shared information they collected from children in Kids Mode with third parties for reasons other than support for internal operations. Defendants did not notify parents of that practice."...

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Rather than lament over the data siphoning, I call attention to the notion that this kind of legislation implies that anyone other than children is "fair game."  You know that anywhere this kind of aggressive data massing could be done outside the scope of this issue... it is being done.  And somehow, that concerns me.  It's getting so you can't access information unless you "identify yourself" to the data provider... something which sort of make certain that YOU are the product to be sold here... and whatever you want to access is just "bait."

[k0rn]

Maybe that’s why most web sites force you to accept cookies now before you access them and apps hide the data collection stuff in 1000 page long legalize that no one has time to read

[l0st]

Maybe that’s why most web sites force you to accept cookies now before you access them and apps hide the data collection stuff in 1000 page long legalize that no one has time to read

I personally won't touch tik-tok with a ten foot pole. No doubt its a Chinese government propaganda mill. They are definitely siphoning off people's info. I was troubleshooting a network problem at home one night and found my partner's phone uploading massive amounts of data to servers hosted by tik-tok. Gigs and gigs worth - probably the entire contents of the phone.

[k0rn]

I personally won't touch tik-tok with a ten foot pole. No doubt its a Chinese government propaganda mill. They are definitely siphoning off people's info. I was troubleshooting a network problem at home one night and found my partner's phone uploading massive amounts of data to servers hosted by tik-tok. Gigs and gigs worth - probably the entire contents of the phone.

That would explain why TikTok pushes so hard for users to install their app instead of viewing it in a browser

[l0st]

That would explain why TikTok pushes so hard for users to install their app instead of viewing it in a browser

No doubt although most modern web browsers aren't much better.

You've got what:

Chrome - Google Spyware
Firefox - Paid by Google to install spyware
Brave - caught red handed selling user data
Opera - Has always harvested user data, its their whole business model
Edge - Chrome with an MS UI slapped on it

If you really want to get away from the tracking you've almost got to use one of the oddball browsers on Linux that uses its own rendering engine and isn't funded by any of the big entities. They exist, but they're typically feature incomplete.

[k0rn]

No doubt although most modern web browsers aren't much better.

You've got what:

Chrome - Google Spyware
Firefox - Paid by Google to install spyware
Brave - caught red handed selling user data
Opera - Has always harvested user data, its their whole business model
Edge - Chrome with an MS UI slapped on it

If you really want to get away from the tracking you've almost got to use one of the oddball browsers on Linux that uses its own rendering engine and isn't funded by any of the big entities. They exist, but they're typically feature incomplete.

I mean as long as I have my smartphone within a few feet of me I know I’m being monitored by apple or google. I kind of just accepted that if you want to use modern tech privacy isn’t really an option anymore for those kind of things unless there is some way around it and I was unaware. I have to have a smartphone for work so…

[Maxmars]

"Do you have kids?" Seems appropriate to ask...

The problem is that no one seems alarmed at just how much of you - as a product - is marketed, and to whom.
TikTok is unapologetic about it... as most internet "service-providers" are... it's all about the love of real money for virtual nothing.

[l0st]

I mean as long as I have my smartphone within a few feet of me I know I’m being monitored by apple or google. I kind of just accepted that if you want to use modern tech privacy isn’t really an option anymore for those kind of things unless there is some way around it and I was unaware. I have to have a smartphone for work so…

First thing I do when I get a smart phone is to turn off every single feature that uses sync or AI or says anything about sending anything to anyone. I don't use a Google account on the phone. I have my own server running at my home and I use 3rd party apps to sync all the data to it. I don't use the Chrome browser, I use Firefox with ublock origin and noscript. I manually unblock any scripts I want to run from parties I "trust". I also disable basically everything in the browser that sends or syncs data. No 3rd party cookies. I block all additional features (cam, mic, etc). I keep passwords in a 3rd party encrypted store. I have the browser set to delete all data at close. I also run my own secure DNS server that is encrypted. When I'm off the home network I send the data outbound over a VPN which I also operate myself. I also use a GPS changer 24/7 and never allow it to use Wifi and Bluetooth for "improved location access" which really means, find all the access points that can be heard by the phone along with the phone's estimated GPS coordinates to Google so they can be mapped. At home, I only use WPA3 on the Wifi - WPA2 and earlier are compromised. I also make sure 802.11w is enabled so management traffic (broadcast) is also encrypted. 

It sounds exhausting, and maybe it is, but there's actually no loss in functionality. My phone can do everything everyone else's does, it just doesn't sync or store anything in "the cloud." Once its all setup its pretty easy to keep it going.

I've considered setting all this up and selling it to the public as a service, but I'm not sure I want the kind of attention, and I'm sure that will get it from the wrong parties.

If I only had to have a phone for work given to me by the company, I'd request that they give me a dumb phone. I assume you're on call or something as I can't think of any other legitimate reason an employer needs you to have a smartphone at your house after business hours. I went rounds with this decades ago when Blackberries were the thing, and all future employers after that time were flatly told NO when I was asked to carry one and take it home with me. No problem carrying at work during business hours. They pitched a fit about it, but I wasn't fired. I don't think they'd have a case. At 5pm work time is over. Once I'm not being paid, I'll do what I like and gladly leave work at work. Any employer who cannot respect that isn't an employer I'd work for. If you're not being paid after hours, they don't have a leg to stand on.

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"Do you have kids?" Seems appropriate to ask...

The problem is that no one seems alarmed at just how much of you - as a product - is marketed, and to whom.
TikTok is unapologetic about it... as most internet "service-providers" are... it's all about the love of real money for virtual nothing.

None that I will admit to!

I agree with you there. The customer is the product now, in a LOT of businesses. Scary times really. Another example is FedEx - their trucks are photographing your vehicles and house and they're selling that data to the government. They're also setting up their own "police department" (no joke!) and they're planning to investigate more than just package theft. 

Honestly, I don't know where these businesses get off collecting most of this data in the first place much less "sharing" it or selling it to anyone else. This isn't just customer contact lists and emails, this is personal data they are harvesting and reselling.

Very strange times we are living in here. This type of intensive surveillance of the consumer class is unprecedented in all of history.

[k0rn]

Well seeing as I have been using gmail for my work for years changing it.
Now is not the best option. And yes I am on call of sorts. I have to have government certification for work and use their apps. It is what it is.

[Lynyrd Skynyrd]

I've read that the Western version of TikTok is not even accessible in China. They have a sanitized, Chinese state controlled version, and even then, they limit how children can use it.