TikTok’s Android application allegedly gathered exceptional identifiers from a huge number of cell phones at least 15 months finishing with the arrival of an update in November a year ago. The unique identifiers, the short-video app collected that is called media access control (MAC) address. Most of advertisers use personal identification data for personalised ads.
Sponsors use The MAC address to follow purchaser conduct persistently and according to The Wall Street Journal TikTok put away the greater part of the client information it communicated in an “additional layer of custom encryption.”
Apple and Google prevented third-party app engineers from gathering MAC locations of their clients. In 2013, Apple prevented third-party app engineers from gathering MAC locations of iPhone clients. Google restricted Android applications accessible on Google Play from gathering MAC locations and IMEI numbers.
The Wall Street Journal found that TikTok packaged the MAC tends to it gathered from Android gadgets information. TikTok sent it to ByteDance when the application was first introduced. In 2018, a study revealed that TikTok leveraged of the Android loophole. However, Google didn’t provide any comment on the matter when reached out by the publication.
TikTok said that the current rendition of its application doesn’t gather MAC addresses. “Like our friends, we continually update our application to stay aware of advancing security challenges.
