TikTok is all over the news these days and questions about its privacy are quite understandable. Like almost all social networks, TikTok collects a lot of your personal information, and combined with ByteDance’s legal troubles in the US, it’s no wonder many people are wondering if they should use one of the best services. VPN when using TikTok.
Here, I’ll quickly discuss whether or not it’s worth using a VPN for TikTok, the reasons why you might want to do so, the potential risks that TikTok poses, and what to do if TikTok really is banned in the US.
Should you use a VPN when using TikTok?
VPNs are a perfect first step in protecting your online privacy, but they are not a silver bullet. In short, they encrypt your data before it leaves your device and change your IP address so that your online activity cannot be tracked.
The problem with TikTok, however, is that it already has access to a huge amount of information about you, which I’ll explore in a minute. Suffice it to say that even without your IP address, TikTok knows who you are.
However, that doesn’t mean that using a VPN with TikTok is totally useless. If you’re worried about TikTok knowing your real location by tracking your IP address, a VPN can prevent this; just be sure to restrict location permissions on your device as well. This will also help avoid location-based advertising.
In many schools and companies, TikTok is banned and restricted, meaning no scrolling during work hours. A VPN can definitely help you regain your precious hours of downtime by totally hiding what you are doing online from your Internet provider, thus making the restriction completely powerless.
The same goes for TikTok bans across the country, although reports on the VPNs’ effectiveness have been mixed from users in India, where TikTok has been banned for some time. A VPN also won’t let you download the app again in countries where it’s banned, but if you’re traveling to such a country with TikTok already installed, a VPN is your best option to maintain access.
What personal data does TikTok collect?
An easier question to answer would be: “What personal data No Collect TikTok?”
When registering, you will be asked to provide your date of birth, email address and/or phone number. It’s up to you whether you use your actual date of birth or your everyday email address.
TikTok also, unsurprisingly, collects all you believe in the platform. This includes your videos, comments, direct messages, live streams, reviews, and hashtags. It also collects the metadata associated with them. For example, if you import a video you took while on vacation two years ago, you’ll know when and where you recorded it if your device recorded this metadata.
When it comes to your content, it doesn’t matter if you posted it or deleted it immediately: TikTok stores it all. So all those drafts that didn’t work still exist somewhere. You can also access your clipboard.
If you choose to sync your contacts, they will be collected, as will your purchase history. Payment methods are also stored if you import them, along with shipping addresses.
Most disturbing of all is the fact that, in the US, TikTok collects “biometric identifiers and biometric information“He claims that this is not used to identify youbut there is no way to opt out of this.
In fact, if you don’t want this to happen, TikTok’s advice is: “Do not upload videos or photos, do not use filters and effects, or go LIVE on TikTok, delete any videos or photos you have uploaded to TikTok and do not do so. “. Don’t use facial age estimation to confirm your age on TikTok.” Simple, huh?
Finally, it’s not just your own data at stake either: “If other people appear in your videos, photos, or LIVE videos, you are responsible for ensuring that TikTok has consent to collect and analyze your facial and voice information.” Therefore, you may be on TikTok’s servers without even downloading the app.
What device data does TikTok collect?
Plenty. Take a deep breath… “IP address, user agent, mobile operator, time zone settings, identifiers for advertising purposes, model of your device, device system, network type, device ID, screen resolution and system operating system, names and types of applications and files, keystroke patterns or rhythms, battery status, audio settings, and connected audio devices.
Hidden there is the fact that TikTok records your keyboard and everything you type, regardless of whether you send the message. Each device you use will also be assigned a Device ID, and TikTok may also generously “associate you with information collected from devices other than the ones you use to log in.”
Your location will be estimated via your SIM card and IP address (use a VPN to prevent this) and although it does not currently record your GPS location, versions of the app released before August 2020 do.
TikTok uses cookies and tracking pixels to measure how you use the app, target advertising, and measure the performance of that advertising. Finally, you can “link your contact or account information to your activity on and off our Platform across all of your devices, using your email or other login or device information.”
What risks does TikTok pose?
If we consider that a Chinese-owned company collects all the information above one risk, then TikTok represents a pretty big one. However, as invasive as it may seem, Meta, Google and many other web giants collect practically the same when you use their services.
This is one of the biggest arguments against banning TikTok in the US, with critics claiming that if TikTok should be banned, so should all other data collection companies. Clearly, the problem is not the data being collected, but the ownership. For many, however, that will make very little difference.
Beyond its invasive privacy policy and addictive nature, TikTok doesn’t really pose any other threat, and using a VPN with TikTok won’t do much to protect you from its tracking unless you take restrictive measures before signing up and using the app. application.
Will using a VPN bypass TikTok ban?
In theory, if you already have TikTok installed on your device, using a VPN to spoof your location in a country where TikTok is available should give you access. However, it’s worth noting that reports from countries where the app has been banned for some time (users in India are a great source of information) claim that the results are mixed.
I definitely recommend visitors from a country where TikTok is banned to sign up for a VPN and try using the app with it. The best case scenario is that it works perfectly, and the worst case scenario is that it doesn’t work at all. All major VPN providers offer 30-day refund periods so you don’t have to pay out of pocket.
Bottom line
Using a VPN with TikTok is the only way to gain access to the app in places where it is banned, although there are conflicting reports as to whether this always works.
However, if you’re concerned about your privacy when using the app, my advice is to never use it in the first place – a VPN will do nothing to mitigate TikTok’s significant data collection, and despite rotating your IP address. , there are many more things that the ByteDance app can work with.
