We live in a social world, but should our businesses? For many, the answer to that is increasingly no—that’s why laws and regulations have recently been put in place restricting access to some social media in certain situations because of the hidden risks of these seemingly innocuous platforms. The United States federal government and some US states, for example, have barred government-issued devices from the use of Chinese-owned TikTok, which allows users to create and share short videos with music, special effects, and other features.
The concern is that foreign-owned applications might share the information they collect with government intelligence agencies. That information includes personally identifiable information, keystroke patterns (PII), location information based on SIM card or IP address, app activity, browser and search history, and biometric information.