TikTok is currently making iPhone users concerned about the privacy of their personal data by asking them for their phone’s PIN code. A hacking attempt or a simple temporary bug?
TikTok collects a phenomenal amount of personal data from its users every second. To use the social network, you must agree to trust it blindly. And hope that it does not exploit the potential of these real gold mines while ensuring their safety. Just the incredible number of authorizations requested by the social network to operate on a smartphone is problematic. Access to all applications installed on the phone, to the geolocation of the device via GPS and network, to detailed information on the operating system of the device, to the calendar, to the clipboard… demands that go far beyond those of a simple social network.
The invasive nature of TikTok is so problematic that, to avoid being banned from Europe, the app had to spend 1.2 billion euros in response to concerns over data security. But the question is far from being resolved. Last September, the Chinese firm was fined 345 million euros for violating European regulations regarding the protection of the personal data of minors, deemed insufficient (see our article). ByteDance has obviously not learned its lesson. Since the last update of the application on iOS, the social network regularly asks its users to enter nothing more and nothing less than their PIN code to be able to continue using it.
TikTok: an increasingly invasive application
Many people complained on the Chinese social network and on Reddit after the application began asking for their iPhone passcode, sparking fears about the security of their personal data. “My TikTok app started randomly asking me for my iPhone passcode when I open the app. Even if I press ‘Cancel’ at the bottom of the screen, the app opens still on my FYP (the “For you” page, editor’s note). What should I do? I’m a little worried”, wrote InspiringLizard on the TikTok Help subreddit. Faced with these concerns, some users have completely changed the passwords of their banking applications, fearing a possible security breach.
If you encounter this type of problem, do not enter your PIN code, but press the cancel button to be able to continue using the application normally. Nothing serious, except annoyance. However, the problem may persist in an invasive manner. However, this appears to be a software bug and not a deliberate attempt to steal iPhone PIN codes. “The iOS passcode prompt was a bug resulting from an update we began rolling out in the US in collaboration with our US security partner. This issue affected a small number of people, we fixed it and people will no longer see the prompt in the future”a TikTok spokesperson told PCMag. “The passcode is used by the iOS operating system to verify the user’s identity. Neither TikTok nor our US security partner has been able to collect or access the passcodes iOS users”. In any case, this is unlikely to improve the image of the social media giant!