An FBI-trained security expert fears the TikTok video app is actually a sophisticated tool for the Chinese regime to spy on citizens’ movements.
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“What they do in real time is the mapping of movements, a bit like Chinese balloons”, illustrates Paul Laurier, ex-investigator at the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) trained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). ).
“They can target very specific accounts,” he adds, of the platform owned by Chinese giant ByteDance.
When asked why TikTok is targeted when Facebook or Google are so hungry for user data, Paul Laurier is adamant.
“In the case of Facebook, a judge must give authorization to transmit data, whereas with TikTok and the Chinese, there is not that. There is no such filter of justice,” he explains.
According to him, these tactics are squarely part of a cyber war.
“They have information on Canada and if ever things go wrong, they know where the people are,” he goes so far as to say.
Elections Quebec on the alert
Last November, Elections Quebec told the Log access TikTok “from a device dedicated exclusively to it and not connected to [son] network [et utiliser] also an independent internet connection”.
Asked by The newspaper last week, the Ministry of Cybersecurity and Digital said it had “no evidence to show that a foreign country is spying on state employees through this application”.
Last Thursday, after the announcement of an investigation by the privacy watchdogs of Canada and Quebec, TikTok had said in a statement sent to the Log favor “transparency”.
“We welcome the opportunity to work with federal and provincial privacy authorities to get the facts straight about our privacy safeguards,” it said.
DATA USED BY TIKTOK
If TikTok is used via another platform (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google), the application also has access to this username, profile and other information.
Source: “The types of personal data we use”, taken from TikTok website
- Hour
- IP adress
- Location (with permission)
- Username, password and date of birth
- Contacts (with permission)
- Type of device used
- Profile info (photo or video)
- Email and/or phone number