Tools: Powerful Tiktok Is Tracking You, Even If You Don't Use The App

TikTok is growing its data harvesting empire, and avoiding the app won’t protect you – but some easy steps can keep you safe.

TikTok keeps track of everything you do on its app – no surprises there. What's less obvious is how the company follows you around other parts of the internet that have nothing to do with TikTok.

In fact, TikTok collects sensitive and potentially embarrassing information about you even if you've never used the app. Over the past week, I've watched websites sending TikTok data about cancer diagnoses, fertility and even mental health crises. It's part of a tracking empire that extends far beyond the social media platform. Now, thanks to a new set of features, TikTok is poised to expand its network and see even more details about your life.

The issue centres around major changes to TikTok's "pixel", a tracking tool that companies use to monitor your online behaviour. I asked a cybersecurity company called Disconnect to analyse it. They found the updated TikTok pixel collects information in unusual ways compared to its competitors.

"It's extremely invasive," says Patrick Jackson, chief technology officer at Disconnect. "This expanded data sharing, when you do analysis of the actual pixel code, you see things that look really bad."

But most people might not realise that TikTok holds data about them even if they have never used the social media platform.

Tracking pixels are nothing new. For years, companies that run advertising networks – including Google, Meta and hundreds of others – have used them to eavesdrop on what people do across the web. They're an invisible image the size of one pixel of your screen that loads in the background of a website, full of data-harvesting tech. They're everywhere, and they're constantly watching you.

When it's shoe store data, the information might be innocuous. But I've reported on TikTok's data collection for years and pixels can collect extremely personal information.

For example, last week I visited the website for a cancer support group. According to Disconnect, when I clicked a button on a form that said I was a cancer patient or a survivor, the website sent TikTok my email address along with those details. A women's health company sent TikTok data when I looked at fertility tests. A mental health organisation pinged TikTok when I indicated I'm looking for a crisis counsellor. Websites that use pixels send data about every single visitor, so it doesn't matter if you don't have a TikTok ac

Source: HackerNews