Find out which programs are watching you the most

Find out which programs are watching you the most

Social media sites seem to be following your every move, collecting massive amounts of personal data from millions of unwilling users, but some are more information-gathering than others.

The “Tik Tok” application is the largest data collection tool, as it collects more information than any other social media application, according to a study conducted by the Internet 2.0 cybersecurity company, and it was reported by the “Daily Mail” newspaper.

The world's most popular video-sharing app, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, has around XNUMX billion active users worldwide, but has more than twice as many trackers in its source code as the industry average.

TikTok's bot surreptitiously collects data about users to fine-tune the algorithm that powers its main feed. But it can also collect information about your Wi-Fi network and Sim card, which raises concerns about how that data is used.

But the company is not alone in this, as Microsoft Teams, Outlook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat ranked first in the top eight among the 22 major companies that absorb the largest amount of data – while Facebook was ranked As one of the best companies, it ranked 16th in the Internet 2.0 evaluation.

Using its Malcore software, Internet 2.0 gave each app a score based on the amount of personal information collected, with TikTok scoring a total of 63.1, calling the app and its requirements "excessively intrusive and not necessary to run the app."

The study's findings come amid a security row over how information collected by social media companies is used

TikTok responded by saying, “This report appears to be based on the same misleading Internet 2.0 analyzes that were conducted last year. Recent reports and studies contradict its conclusions. TikTok is not unique in the amount of information it collects, and in fact it collects less data than many popular mobile apps.

For his part, David Robinson, a former Australian Army intelligence officer and co-founder of Internet 2.0, said the company has "long-term privacy and security concerns" about TikTok.

Alan Woodward, professor of cybersecurity at the University of Surrey, said: “TikTok appears to be collecting information, and you have to wonder why, other than creating a complete profile on someone. The type of data is so broad that it is hard not to conclude that it is used for more than just marketing and creating some kind of profile of people for marketing purposes. And that, I think, is a concern, especially in the current geopolitical environment where China is establishing itself as a quite assertive state player.”

Continuous seismic forecasts by scientist Frank Hugerpets