Chinese social media network TikTok has recently updated its privacy policy in the United States last Wednesday, June 2, 2021. The new privacy policy reportedly sees the company obtaining the biometric data of users in the future, including their faceprints and voiceprints.
The change in its privacy policy comes as the app aims to get back in the good graces of users in the United States, notes Tech Crunch.
In an article by CNET, the news site said that TikTok paid a massive fine amounting to $92 million after allegedly obtaining the private and biometric information of users in the United States and passing it on to third parties. The social network has since maintained that it had not gathered users’ biometric information.
Based on its updated privacy policy, TikTok states that they “may collect information about the images and audio that are a part of your User Content, such as identifying the objects and scenery that appear, the existence and location within an image of face and body features and attributes, the nature of the audio, and the text of the words spoken in your User Content.”
According to TikTok, the collection of this sensitive information may be geared towards providing users with “special video effects, for content moderation, for demographic classification, for content ad recommendations, and for other non-personally-identifying operations.”
Although the changes in the app’s new policy remain, Tech Crunch states that the company failed to acknowledge the importance or the reason why TikTok needs these types of information in the first place.
Tech Crunch points out that while the company maintains they will ask users for consent prior to collecting the said data, this promise remains quite vague, given that the new policy only reads, “where required by law, we will seek any required permissions from you prior to any such collection.”
However, as of writing, Tech Crunch states that only a select few in the country have biometric privacy laws in place. These include the likes of California, Illinois, New York, Texas, and Washington. With the new law, the news site fears that individuals from other states who do not have privacy laws in place will not be informed by TikTok about such collections.
Other information that is already being collected by the Chinese social network include location data, IP addresses, data sent via messages, metadata, app and file names, keystroke patterns, and more, reveals Tech Crunch.