Well, it could get worse. TikTok may suffer from some gigantic data breaches exposing your account credentials and private video broadcasts to the world. But the alternative is not much better, privacy wise: a recent Wall Street Journal report found that the popular social network tracked its MAC addresses of Android users for at least 15 months, eliminating the practice only as part of a November update to the app last year.
Have they made this known to Android users? No; net in any meaningful way that a regular person would at least be found—Tiny fonts in an unread privacy policy should not count. In fact, I would bet they did not disclose it at all, given that the practice was technically not allowed by the Android operating system at the time. TikTok had to use a solution to create the tracking and it then captured data along with other identifying features for parent company ByteDance. As the WSJs Kevin Poulsen and Robert McMillan wrote:
“TikTok bundled the MAC address with other device data and sent it to ByteDance when the app was first installed and opened on a new device. That bundle also includes the ad ID of the device, a 32-digit number intended to track advertisers’ consumer behavior while giving the user some measure of anonymity and control over their information.
If you’ve been to TikToking for a long time, there are a few steps you can take to address this issue, but know that the advertising world is a mess. The more data that is leaked about you, the easier it is for companies to link all that data together and make it incredibly difficult for you to ever truly separate yourself from everything they know about you. User profiles are what adtech is all about, and you did not hear that just from me.
On Android, I would start by resetting your ad ID. Again, this will not make you anonymous, but it is at least eat can you do to make the business ever so hard to associate your behavior with you and your device. You will generally find the option to reset your ad ID Settings> Privacy> Advanced> Ads.
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While you are here, you may want to consider completing the ad personalization completely. That will not prevent apps from following you in many other ways, but it will cut at least one tool out of their arsenals.
Next I would try Androids Network and internet settings (Settings> Network and Internet), and then tap on your wifi connection. Tap the acceleration icon to the right of any network connected to it, tap Advanced and tap Privacy. Select the option to use a random MAC instead of your device’s MAC, and you’ll be a little harder to follow this way. You have to set this up for each wifi network you connect to, which will be annoying, but it’s an option.
Is that all you can do? Not exactly. If you really hate tracking, you can try using it other third-party apps to separate the connection between your phone and various advertising services. Or, heeck, run all your network traffic through otherwise VPNs with privacy theme to try out the characteristics that can be associated with you.
However, there is no guarantee that the hottest apps you download will not be able to capture information about you yet – especially if they follow everything you do when you sign in and use them.
I would suggest more ideas, but try to keep companies from building profiles based on your usage patterns, identifying information, and ongoing identifiers resembles a Sisyphean task. I run adblockers in my browsers and funnel all my devices through a Pi-hole server running AdGuard, and even then I feel like a lost cause. That’s the price I pay to see Pomeranian photos from around the world at a glance, I think.
All you can do is equip yourself with the best tools and blockers you can get, and know that using an app from another company – especially if it’s for free – means you ‘pay for it’ with all information about you that other companies, especially advertisers, can use to serve your crap.
But hey, at least TikTok do not scan your clipboard anymore. This is an improvement, right?
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