The Dangers Of TikTok

When Donald Trump threatened to ban TikTok as a national security threat, he was mocked, largely because it was him making the threat. Now, two years later, it seems the Donald has been proven right. All it took was a statement from TikTok’s European head Elaine Fox, admitting than European users’ data had been accessed by employees in China, breaching privacy agreements. 

Add on to this that in Ireland, the data watchdog is investigating TikTok’s transfers of millions of Europeans’ data to China, and things are getting even more heated. 

Given the requirement within China for companies to have representatives of the Communist party on their boards, there is a case for genuine fear that Europeans and Americans personal or private information could have been accessed by the Chinese government. Additionally, concerns may grow that the Chinese government is using this data to effectively spy on individuals both outside and inside its borders.

With the prevalence of TikTok amongst the young, it will be interesting to see how governments and companies address this concern, and whether they will truly take the threat seriously.