TikTok Is Now Collecting Even More Data About Its Users

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: When TikTok users in the U.S. opened the app today, they were greeted with a pop-up asking them to agree to the social media platform's new terms of service and privacy policy before they could resume scrolling. These changes are part of TikTok's transition to new ownership. In order to continue operating in the U.S., TikTok was compelled by the U.S. government to transition from Chinese control to a new, American-majority corporate entity. Called TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, the new entity is made up of a group of investors that includes the software company Oracle. It's easy to tap "agree" and keep on scrolling through videos on TikTok, so users might not fully understand the extent of changes they are agreeing to with this pop-up.

Now that it's under U.S.-based ownership, TikTok potentially collects more detailed information about its users, including precise location data. Here are the three biggest changes to TikTok's privacy policy that users should know about. TikTok's change in location tracking is one of the most notable updates in this new privacy policy. Before this update, the app did not collect the precise, GPS-derived location data of U.S. users. Now, if you give TikTok permission to use your phone's location services, then the app may collect granular information about your exact whereabouts. Similar kinds of precise location data is also tracked by other social media apps, like Instagram and X.

[...] Rather than an adjustment, TikTok's policy on AI interactions adds a new topic to the privacy policy document. Now, users' interactions with any of TikTok's AI tools explicitly fall under data that the service may collect and store. This includes any prompts as well as the AI-generated outputs. The metadata attached to your interactions with AI tools may also be automatically logged. [...] This change to TikTok's privacy policy may not be as immediately noticeable to users, but it will likely have an impact on the types of ads you see outside of TikTok. So, rather than just using your collected data to target you while using the app, TikTok may now further leverage that info to serve you more relevant ads wherever you go online. As part of this advertising change, TikTok also now explicitly mentions publishers as one kind of partner the platform works with to get new data.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

nmap -sV --script vuln -p- <target-network>

tail -f /var/log/suricata/fast.log | grep <cve>

Check Vendor Security Advisory Bulletin

title: Detect Exploitation - TikTok Is Now Collecting Even More Data About Its Users
id: 35b49fc2-5d7d-4d9d-91f8-131095a00fa1
status: experimental
description: Automatisch generierte SIEM-Erkennungsregel basierend auf CTI Intelligence
references:
  - https://tsecurity.de/
author: iShareStuff CTI Automated Detection Engine
date: 2026-09-27
logsource:
  category: network_connection
  product: any
detection:
  selection:
      CommandLine|contains:
        - 'exploit'
  condition: selection
falsepositives:
  - Legitime administrative Zugriffe oder Penetrationstests
level: high
tags:
  - attack.initial_access

rule CTI_Threat_Indicator {
    meta:
        author = "iShareStuff CTI Automated Detection Engine"
        date = "2026-09-27"
        description = "YARA Signature for "
    strings:
        $str = "TikTok Is Now Collecting Even " ascii wide
    condition:
        any of them
}

index=security sourcetype IN ("cisco:asa", "pan:traffic", "zeek_conn", "suricata", "WinEventLog:Security")
("TikTok Is Now Collecting Even More Data ")
| stats count earliest(_time) as first_seen latest(_time) as last_seen by src_ip, dest_ip, dest_host, signature
| eval first_seen=strftime(first_seen, "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"), last_seen=strftime(last_seen, "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")
| sort - count

message: "*TikTok Is Now Collecting Even More Data *"

CommonSecurityLog
| where Message has "TikTok Is Now Collecting Even More Data "
| summarize EventCount = count(), FirstSeen = min(TimeGenerated), LastSeen = max(TimeGenerated) by SourceIP, DestinationIP, DestinationPort, Activity
| extend DetectionRule = "iShareStuff-CTI-Compiled"
| sort by EventCount desc