Information security | A code was revealed from the popular Tiktok application that tracks the user’s every move – a Data Security expert recommends deleting the application

Data security experts warn users of the Tiktok app about security issues with its in-app browser.

The problem is specifically related to Apple’s iOS application. Opening a website through the Tiktok application made for the iOS operating system enters the device into a tracking code that can monitor all the keystrokes the user makes on the site, including passwords and credit card information and individual taps, such as opening links. So it’s a kind of keyboard recorder.

It does not automatically mean that Tiktok uses this data to its advantage. However, it is good for users to know that the company has the possibility to collect data.

Tiktok is a Chinese video application that has previously been criticized for data security problems and its connections to the Chinese government.

For example, a data protection expert Harto Pönkä urges people on Twitter to remove Tiktok from their work phones.

The application the internal browser cannot monitor all phone usage, only the usage that follows the link opened in the application.

That is, if you come across an ad on Tiktok that tells you to go to a certain page, and you open that site through Tiktok, the program starts tracking the user’s actions.

You can protect yourself from this program by making sure that you open the application’s links through a secure browser, such as Chrome or Safari. Usually, applications ask if the user wants to open the link through the application’s browser or their own browser.

However, Tiktok does not ask this, but automatically uses its own application, built for the application.

“It’s about the company’s own active choice,” said a software researcher who discovered Tiktok’s internal program Felix Krause says the economic magazine For Forbes.

Using ready-made browsers is easier and faster for applications than building your own in-app browser, says Krause. So it can be concluded from this that the developer of the application had some motivation for building his own browser.

Tiktok has strongly denied that it tracks its users through the app’s browser. Tiktok confirms that there are features in the code that enable it, but that Tiktok does not use them.

Also Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Snapchat, Amazon and Robinhood use in-app browsers.

Krause tested these apps as well, but Tiktok seemed to track user activity the most extensively. Instagram and Facebook track every click a user makes on websites opened from the application. These apps also track if the user paints text from sites.

Meta, which owns Facebook, responded For Forbesthat in-app browsers are common in the industry.