The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that TikTok’s Android application had collected users’ MAC addresses for 18 months, violating Google Play Store policies. These addresses serve as a unique identifier for each user’s device and can be used for advertising tracking and potentially more invasive tracking.
In 2015, both Apple App Store and Google Play Store banned the collection of MAC addresses, but TikTok was still able to obtain the identifier through a loophole. A study cited by the report found that nearly 350 apps on the Google Play Store exploit similar vulnerabilities, generally for advertising targeting purposes.
TikTok stopped this practice in November last year . TikTok is currently at a delicate moment. Last week, the White House issued an executive order that if the company cannot complete the sale of its US business, it will cut off from September 20. All U.S. transactions with the company. The company is currently negotiating with Microsoft, but it is unclear to what extent the transaction has proceeded.
Naijatechnews.com learned that TikTok responded that they have stopped this practice, “We are constantly updating our applications to keep up with changing security challenges. The current version of TikTok does not collect MAC addresses.” A representative said, “We always encourage users to download the latest version of TikTok.”
A Google spokesperson declined to comment on the vulnerability that allows some apps to collect MAC addresses.
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