An investigation by Consumer Reports has found that popular video-sharing app TikTok has partnered with hundreds of organisations to collect data on people as they browse the Internet.

The organisations in question embed TikTok trackers dubbed “pixels” in their websites, which lets them gather data for ad-targeting within the TikTok app.

The information included in the trackers can be your IP address, the page visited, and what you clicked, typed, and searched for.

Among the websites containing TikTok pixels were United Methodist Church, WebMD, Weight Watchers, and Planned Parenthood.

A TikTok spokesperson said the data was used to improve the effectiveness of its advertising services.

So understand this is not from the app itself, so the app gets through the checks from Apple and Google Stores. This is about pixel tracking that is embedded in various websites, that report back to TikTok, much the same as was happening with Meta/Facebook before. So your only friend here is a proper privacy based browser.

See https://mybroadband.co.za/news/security/462901-tiktok-tracking-activity-across-the-web-even-if-you-dont-use-the-app.html

#technology #tracking #tiktok #pixeltracker