TikTok allegedly bypassed security protocols and collected IP addresses for over a year

TikTok, which was banned in India and several other countries have violated the safety protocols and collected IP addresses of users without their consent. The Chinese origin app used to do this for over a year before being tracked out. The IP addresses that were collected did serve the purpose of revealing the identity of the user’s device which makes it more valuable in terms of both advertising and potentially more invasive forms of tracking as well.

The collection of MAC addresses was banned by Google Play Store and iOS App Store in the year 2015 as a matter of policy. As per the market report, it was found that over 350 applications that were available on the Google Play Store had taken advantage of a loophole in the security measures in terms to serve ad-targeting purposes.

TikTok and its titbits –

TikTok is a Chinese origin social media app that was used by several users globally in order to live stream, create short videos and music videos that included Gifs, and a host of different other features. After its launch, TikTok's tagline was to 'Make every second count'. As per a market report, it was the most downloaded app in countries across the world including the US and it managed to become the world's fourth most downloaded app in 2018 and was the competitor of Instagram and Snapchat. However, in the year 2019, it was the second-most downloaded app globally just after Whatsapp.

The users of TicTok that used app only to make short videos like dancing, singing, share stories, make motivational videos, etc. The app had features that helped in modification and edit the videos including music, sound, animated stickers, filters, augmented reality (AR), and several others. TikTok was based in Beijing and had over 500 million active users and the social media platform is now worth over $75 billion (£58 billion) in the current market.

TikTok violated the norms in order to –

• Circumnavigate Android's controls in order to monitor users through their MAC addresses.
• Identify and target MAC addresses that included a 12-digit unique code on all internet-enabled devices which was successfully identified by TikTok.
• Track the MAC addresses which can be useful for advertisers in order to generate a picture of the users.
• Blocked the access of iPhone MAC addresses. 

TikTok was able to find a loophole that was used to access the data of Android users, collect their details such as the habits of millions of users without their knowledge and consent, as has been claimed. The Chinese origin social media app is being intensely scrutinized over claims such as it is used by Beijing in order to spy the users and steal data.

How TikTok managed to reveal the Mac addresses?

As per sources, TikTok managed to get access to the MAC address which is basically a 12-digit media access control code. This unique number can be easily found in all internet-friendly electronic devices such as mobile devices and is quite wanted by the advertisers because it cannot be reset or altered with. This allowed the Chinese social media app maker and other third-party analytics firms to build profiles of consumer behaviour that may persevere throughout any privacy measures or internet protocols.

According to the sources from Apple, it was found that the tech giant had already blocked the access of iPhone MAC addresses way back in 2013 which had prevented the third-party apps from reading the identifier. On the other hand, Google also did the same thing just two years later with the Android apps, but TikTok still managed to bypass the restriction on the Android devices simply by using a workaround that allows apps to retrieve MAC addresses through an indirect route.

However, there is nothing to worry about as TicTok is now banned in the United States, and several other countries and particularly Microsoft has also shown interest in buying the social media app for $50 billion. According to the industry sources, TikTok had removed its tracking systems as updated on 18th November 2019s. Also in a statement from the company, it was stated that the current version of TikTok will not be able to MAC addresses anymore.