Washington [US]Aug 21 (ANI): Amid data privacy concerns, recent investigations have revealed that the web browser used on China’s TikTok app can track every keystroke made by its users.
The research was conducted by Felix Krause, a privacy researcher and former Google engineer, The New York Times reported.
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Collecting information about what people type on their phones while visiting external websites, which can reveal credit card numbers and passwords, is often a feature of malware and other hacking tools, researchers say.
While major tech companies may use these trackers while testing new software, it’s not common for them to release a major commercial app with the feature enabled or not, according to researchers cited by The NYT.
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“According to Krause’s findings, the way TikTok’s custom app browser handles keystrokes is problematic, as the user could enter their sensitive data, such as login credentials on sites external websites,” said Jane Manchun Wong, an independent software engineer and security researcher who studies. applications for new functions.
However, TikTok said in the statement that it said Krause’s report was “incorrect and misleading” and that the feature was used for “debugging, troubleshooting and performance monitoring”.
“Contrary to the report’s claims, we do not collect keystrokes or text inputs using this code,” TikTok said.
Krause, 28, said he could not determine whether keystrokes were being actively tracked and whether that data was being sent to TikTok.
Notably, according to LinkedIn public employee profiles reviewed by Forbes, three hundred current employees of TikTok and its parent company ByteDance previously worked for Chinese state media publications.
Twenty-three of those profiles appear to have been created by current ByteDance executives, who manage departments overseeing content partnerships, public affairs, corporate social responsibility and “media cooperation.”
Fifteen indicate that current ByteDance employees also work concurrently for Chinese state media entities, including Xinhua News Agency, China Radio International and China Central/China Global Television. (These organizations were among those designated by the State Department as “foreign government officials” in 2020.)
Meanwhile, leaders of the US Senate Intelligence Committee have called for an investigation into whether Chinese officials had access to data on US users of the short video platform TikTok.
In a letter to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairwoman Lina Khan, Democratic Senator Mark Warner and Republican Senator Marco Rubio had urged her to examine the extent to which TikTok protects private data.
TikTok, which is popular for its short, viral meme-making videos, has been working to dismiss concerns that it is a national security risk. (ANI)
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