Does TikTok spy on you? Everything to know as Forbes journalists get tracked by ByteDance

As per a Forbes’ report, in October, ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, confirmed that it used the platform to monitor and track journalists’ location with the help of their IP addresses.

TikTok’s parent company conducted an internal investigation and found that their employees had been tracking several journalists who were on TikTok. The employees gained access to the journalists’ IP addresses as well as their user data via illegal and improper means to determine whether their location matched that of the employees of ByteDance.

Though the app claimed that updates and changes were made to the app to provide better security to user data and keep it from being handed over to China, leaked audio from the app’s meetings falsified their claims. In September last year, a member of the app’s Trust and Safety team stated that everything that goes on the app is monitored in China. In yet another meeting, another official said that the “master admin,” who was in Beijing, held access to everything.

A recent discovery says that the app carried out “excessive data harvesting” on its users’ devices, which includes downloading the location of the device at least once an hour. Another piece of information that came to light is that the app was collecting serial numbers of the users’ devices as well as their SIM cards.

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Tracking Forbes journalists via TikTok was part of ByteDance's secret surveillance campaign

ByteDance’s tracking of Forbes journalists was part of a secret surveillance campaign, as per reviewed material by the media company. This campaign was put into place to uncover the source of leaks inside the company.

As a result of this investigation, ByteDabce fired its chief internal auditor, Chris Lepitak, who led the team that was responsible for exposing the company’s links to China. Lepitak reported to Song Ye, a China-based executive who directly reports to Rubo Liang, the CEO of ByteDance. Song Ye also resigned from his post.

Rubo Liang wrote in an email sent to Forbes:

“I was deeply disappointed when I was notified of the situation…and I’m sure you feel the same. The public trust that we have spent huge efforts building is going to be significantly undermined by the misconduct of a few individuals…I believe this situation will serve as a lesson to us all.”

In a second internal email sent to Forbes, Erich Andersen, TikTok’s General Counsel said:

“It is standard practice for companies to have an internal audit group authorized to investigate code of conduct violations. However, in this case individuals misused their authority to obtain access to TikTok user data.”

In October, Forbes first reported that journalists were being tracked as a surveillance tactic, which were overseen by one of ByteDance’s China-based teams. When the company was asked to share its comments on the story, neither the parent company nor the short-video hosting platform denied the claim.

But after the story was published, they took to Twitter and said that the app never aimed at targeting any member of the U.S. government, journalists, public figures, or activists. They also asserted that the app is not programmed to monitor users in the way the story suggested.

TikTok’s security has long been questioned by the U.S. government since Donald Trump was president. In 2020, Trump tried to force the Chinese company to sell TikTok to a U.S.-based company or face the risk of being banned from Apple and Google app stores. He alleged that TikTok downloads users’ data and the Chinese government spies on Americans through them.

The short-video platform has tracked users’ online behavior in the past as well. In 2021, the platform automatically started collecting biometric data. An independent researcher discovered in 2022 that a code allowed the app to log keystrokes.