TikTok is the most downloaded app in the world, with 672 million downloads, and as such it is under special surveillance by security and intelligence agencies around the world. In Europe, united States, Canada and other countries, the social network is under fire.

Not far than last Monday, the White House gave government agencies 30 days to ensure they do not have TikTok on federal devices and systems.

Congress, the White House, U.S. armed forces and more than half of U.S. states had already banned TikTok amid concerns that its parent company, ByteDance, would give user data such as browsing history and location to the Chinese government, or push propaganda and misinformation on its behalf.

In an unprecedented move, The European Commission announced on February 23^rd that they had requested that their staff remove the TikTok app from their work and personal devices with work-related apps installed.

Officials are required to uninstall the video-sharing app “at their earliest convenience” and before March 15. “As of 15 March, devices with the app installed will be considered non-compliant with the corporate environment,” the email read. The Commission said that this is the first time it has suspended the use of an app for its staff.  Spokespeople Eric Mamer and Sonya Gospodinova said it had been the result of  a “careful” analysis. They declined, however, to disclose information that led them to conclude the app poses significant cybersecurity and data risks for the EU executive.  

China says the bans reveal the insecurities of those countries and are an abuse of state power. But they come at a time when Western technology companies, including Airbnb, Yahoo and LinkedIn, have been leaving China or downsizing operations there because china’s strict privacy law that specifies how companies can collect and store data.

So how serious is the threat? And should TikTok users who don't work for the government be worried about the app, too?

The answers depend somewhat on whom you ask, and how concerned you are in general about technology companies gathering and sharing personal data.
The fact is that when you install the app you give it access to your phone data, be it gallery, browsing history, microphone and others. 

What are the concerns about TikTok?

There are warnings that ByteDance could share TikTok user data with China's government.
A law in China implemented in 2017 requires companies to give the government any personal data relevant to the country's national security. There's no evidence that TikTok has turned over such data, but fears abound due to the vast amount of user data it collects. Concerns were heightened in December when ByteDance said it fired four employees who accessed data on two journalists from Buzzfeed News and The Financial Times while attempting to track down the source of a leaked report about the company. TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter said the breach was an "egregious misuse" of the employees’ authority. 

How risky is TikTok?

It depends on who you ask. 
The amount of information TikTok collects might not be that different from other popular social media sites, experts say. In an analysis published in 2021, the University of Toronto's nonprofit Citizen Lab said TikTok and Facebook collect similar amounts of user data, including device identifiers that can be used to track a user and other information that can piece together a user's behavior across different platforms. It's valuable information for advertisers.
"If you are not comfortable with that level of data collection and sharing, you should avoid using the app," the Citizen Lab report said.

What are other experts saying?

While the potential abuse of privacy by the Chinese government is concerning, "it's equally concerning that the US government, and many other governments, already abuse and exploit the data collected by every other U.S.-based tech company with the same data-harvesting business practices," said Evan Greer, director of the nonprofit advocacy group Fight for the Future.
"If policy makers want to protect Americans from surveillance, they should advocate for a basic privacy law that bans all companies from collecting so much sensitive data about us in the first place, rather than engaging in what amounts to xenophobic showboating that does exactly nothing to protect anyone," Greer said.
Others say there is legitimate reason for concern.
People who use TikTok might think they're not doing anything that would be of interest to a foreign government, but that's not always the case, said Anton Dahbura, executive director of the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute.

What does TikTok say?

Its unclear how much the government-wide TikTok ban might impact the company. Oberwetter, the TikTok spokesperson, said it has "no way" of knowing whether its users are government employees.
The company, though, has questioned the bans, saying it has not been given an opportunity to answer questions and that governments were cutting themselves off from a platform beloved by millions.
"These bans are little more than political theater," TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter said.

Brice Ulrich AFFERI