TikTok collected mac addresses from Android users

By admin On Aug 12, 2020

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TikTok collected the mac addresses of users running the app on Android, according to research from the Wall Street Journal. The company used one loophole in Google’s rules, bypassing the Play Store’s rules.

TikTok collected unique mac addresses from Android users, against Google’s rules. The Wall Street Journal investigated TikTok’s data collection. The newspaper concludes that the app used a way to collect unique MAC addresses, even though Google doesn’t allow it. The WSJ looked at nine different versions of the app released between April 2018 and January 2020. TikTok would in any case have collected the mac addresses in the first eighteen months of it, but would have stopped doing so in November last year.

The collection also continued after Google banned the linking of personal information to device identifiers in 2015. This included, for example, imei numbers, but also mac addresses. TikTok used a loophole in Google’s policy, according to the WSJ. The company collected the mac address as soon as the app was first opened, before the user could consent to it. At the same time, the unique advertiser id was linked to the mac address. If a user resets their advertiser ID, TikTok can still associate that new ID with the user, because the mac address will remain the same.

The Wall Street Journal also found that TikTok uses a proprietary, self-built encryption layer for connections. That way, transmitted data would be further hidden, on top of the standard encryption protocols already in use.

TikTok has been under fire in recent months, especially in American politics. President Trump has said parent company ByteDance should sell TikTok to an American party because the app collects a lot of data and that it would pose a danger to the American population. The Wall Street Journal concluded in the study that TikTok collects little information in addition to the mac address that other apps do not also collect. The company also mentions the data it collects in its privacy policy.