TikTok Caught Planning to Spy on the Locations of Specific American Citizens

Documents reveal a China-based team at TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, planned to spy on the physical locations of specific American citizens using the popular video app’s location data. It’s unclear if the team was ultimately able to obtain any information about the targeted Americans. The timing, here, is interesting to say the company and TikTok are currently in national security talks with the US government. A spokesperson for TikTok assured the company that the location-tracking capabilities are necessary to, ‘help show relevant content and ads to users, comply with applicable laws, and detect and prevent fraud and inauthentic behavior,’ the publication maintains that the leaked materials made clear that the planned surveillance had nothing to do with advertising. The company declined to comment. . . .