‘TikTok’ Begins Trending In The UAE After Apple Catches The App Spying On Its Young Audience

Reports of TikTok spying have once again been brought to light, and this time it’s Apple calling out the Chinese app for breaching user privacy and spying on millions of iPhone users.

Forbes has deemed the app as malicious since TikTok assured its users back in April that “it doesn’t get access to user data”, however, “Apple’s new iOS 14 security and privacy changes have caught them red-handed repeatedly doing something they shouldn’t.”

Read on to find out how a user who ‘reverse-engineered’ the app found that TikTok entices you to keep scrolling and posting with the promise of ‘fast fame’ while it extracts your data.

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The new iOS 14 security features have revealed that the Chinese video-sharing app is able to access your clipboard

Which basically means that anything you copy on your Apple laptops or iPads can be read by your iPhones and vice versa.

Hence, “if TikTok is active on your phone while you work, the app can basically read anything and everything you copy on another device,” including:

• Passwords
• Work documents
• Sensitive emails
• Financial information

… fundamentally the app can access all sorts of data.

This news is alarming parents and users across the globe and predominantly the UAE, as the app is commonly operated by youngsters and tweens.

A data breach can cause unsuspecting users to easily fall prey to propaganda gimmicks or fall victim to cybercrimes

iOS 14 beta detects TikTok was reading data from user clipboards.

iOS 14 has a feature which notifies users of this kind of behavior. TikTok says they will stop the practice.

— Hotep Jesus (@HotepJesus) June 26, 2020

Annoyed users upset over TikTok’s spying are questioning whether it’s time to “get rid of TikTok once and for all?”

Android and iOS users alike have given an ultimatum to the app asking for more restrictions and transparency or they will put an end to using the app for good.

“TikTok is nothing more than a data-collection platform, masquerading as a video sharing app… they get everything from you, they’re tracking your GPS, your communications… your WiFi which is filtered back…”

The radio show and podcast, War Room: Pandemic have shared this clip on the topic of TikTok spyware on their official Twitter page.

https://twitter.com/WarRoomPandemic/status/1276564562997923841

Users are questioning why hasn’t TikTok been banned from digital distribution platforms like App Store and Google Play Store like other data-breaching apps have been in the past…

A new feature in iOS 14 alerts Apple users when apps read the clipboard, and it turns out that TikTok has been excessively reading and accessing clipboard data

TikTok users who upgraded to ‌iOS 14‌, noticed the strange alerts of Apple warning them that the video-sharing app was accessing their clipboard ‘every 1-3 keystrokes’.

https://twitter.com/jeremyburge/status/1275896482433040386

A user who ‘reverse-engineered’ the app found that TikTok entices you to keep scrolling and posting with the promise of ‘fast fame’ while it extracts your data:

“They leaked users’ email addresses in their HTTP RESET API, as well as their secondary emails used for password resets.”

TikTok recently sent us their statement explaining that “following the beta release of iOS14 on June 22, users saw notifications while using a number of popular apps. For TikTok, this was triggered by a feature designed to identify repetitive, spammy behaviour. We have already submitted an updated version of the app to the App Store removing the anti-spam feature to eliminate any potential confusion,” – Rami Zeidan, Head of Video and a Creative at TikTok MENA.

A guy on reddit reversed engineered #TikTok

Here’s what he found on the data it collects on you

It’s far worse than just stealing what’s on your clipboard: pic.twitter.com/oqaQyYDXT2

— Dan Okopnyi 🇺🇦 (@d1rtydan) June 28, 2020

Read more: A Dubai TikToker Is Jailed For Faking A Shooting Scene In A Car Park