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TikTok Gives Itself Permission To Collect Biometric Data On US Users, Including 'Faceprints and Voiceprints' (techcrunch.com) 31

Posted by BeauHD from the vague-statements dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: A change to TikTok's U.S. privacy policy on Wednesday introduced a new section that says the social video app "may collect biometric identifiers and biometric information" from its users' content. This includes things like "faceprints and voiceprints," the policy explained. Reached for comment, TikTok could not confirm what product developments necessitated the addition of biometric data to its list of disclosures about the information it automatically collects from users, but said it would ask for consent in the case such data collection practices began. The biometric data collection details were introduced in the newly added section, "Image and Audio Information," found under the heading of "Information we collect automatically" in the policy. This is the part of TikTok's Privacy Policy that lists the types of data the app gathers from users, which was already fairly extensive.

The first part of the new section explains that TikTok may collect information about the images and audio that are in users' content, "such as identifying the objects and scenery that appear, the existence and location within an image of face and body features and attributes, the nature of the audio, and the text of the words spoken in your User Content." The policy also notes this part of the data collection is for enabling "special video effects, for content moderation, for demographic classification, for content and ad recommendations, and for other non-personally-identifying operations," it says. The more concerning part of the new section references a plan to collect biometric data. It states: "We may collect biometric identifiers and biometric information as defined under US laws, such as faceprints and voiceprints, from your User Content. Where required by law, we will seek any required permissions from you prior to any such collection." "The statement itself is vague, as it doesn't specify whether it's considering federal law, states laws, or both," adds TechCrunch. "It also doesn't explain, as the other part did, why TikTok needs this data. It doesn't define the terms 'faceprints' or 'voiceprints.' Nor does it explain how it would go about seeking the 'required permissions' from users, or if it would look to either state or federal laws to guide that process of gaining consent."
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TikTok Gives Itself Permission To Collect Biometric Data On US Users, Including 'Faceprints and Voiceprints' More

TikTok Gives Itself Permission To Collect Biometric Data On US Users, Including 'Faceprints and Voiceprints'

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  • I must be outdated with regards to how the law applies now in 2021!

    Where required by law, we will seek any required permissions from you prior to any such collection.

    "The statement itself is vague, as it doesn't specify whether it's considering federal law, states laws, or both," adds TechCrunch.

    My understanding is that a company needs not only to consider, but also obey all laws applying wherever they do business.

  • The beatings will continue until morale improves (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sinij ( 911942 ) on Friday June 04, 2021 @08:24AM (#61453670)
    Such blatant and on-going abuse of privacy can only be stopped by punitive legislation.

    Only 20 years ago something like this would result in Congressional Hearings, criminal investigation, civil lawsuits and OJ-sized scandal in the media. How did we got from there to here?

    • Re:The beatings will continue until morale improve (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Kisai ( 213879 ) on Friday June 04, 2021 @08:30AM (#61453680)

      While I don't like or use TikTok, I think two things are going on here.
      a) audio fingerprinting, be it used for criminal, legal, or just abuse prevention. There could be a policy that comes down the pipe later regarding physical/psychological abuse, and they want to filter this stuff away from those who aren't over 18/who don't want to see it.
      b) copyright infringement

      I think the latter is probably the intended use, because they probably get a lot of requests for things to be taken down that have been re-uploaded/meme'd on that spread semi-virally. I can think of at least one case (on youtube) where someone took down an infringing "re-upload" of their video, and then once the video was down they uploaded a copy of their original video under the title of the infringing video taken down, and subsequently got all the monetization from it.

      I suspect this is going to be the case a lot more often, copyright slap-fights that never see a courtroom.

      So if Tiktok starts running face and audio identification there WILL be a lot of false-positive's because ML is good, but it's definitely biased. Anyone who uploads a video with text-to-speech in it, is going to be linked together, and that's a bad thing.

    • How did we got from there to here?

      Too many other things to worry about than what kids are doing on TikTok. Or what TikTok is doing to them.

    • Ummm, twenty years ago was about when we were coming out of 9/11. So there's your answer.

    • Ok millennial, twenty years ago we were well into carving out legal exemptions for internet companies so we don't accidentally hamper any "innovation".

      Now act all faux angry about a free internet service hosting trashy videos for public access, errmagawd they read your videos.

      Twenty(ish) years ago it was common knowledge that gmail is reading your email to build user profiles. Even idiots didn't think they were getting 1g of storage totally free in 2000-something. Fast forward today and, well, modern idio

    • Facebook.

  • If you are brain dead enough to use TikTok, you deserve this. We really are on the road of Idiocracy society...

  • What delusional mind thinks this is ok??

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Lots of people.

      At this point, all cellphone manufacturers can use biometric data to unlock your phone. Facial recognition is increasingly being used for online identification, etc

    • All the delusional morons that will continue to use it regardless.

    • What delusional mind thinks this is ok??

      Everybody is doing this and most of them aren't even bothering with a few sentences in a EULA. They just scrape the internet indiscriminately for all the data they can get and don't give a shit about laws and they ususally get away with it due to jurisdictional limitations. These bozos are a case in point: https://www.theverge.com/2021/... [theverge.com] ...and they aren't even close to being the only ones. Anybody who thinks they can't be tracked through some face recognition system because they kept their photos off the

    • What delusional mind thinks this is ok??

      Anyone uploading videos for public consumption inherently is agreeing to having that video analyzed any way anyone choses to... even if TikTok were not doing so directly, other groups would be.

      It's OK, because people want to be seen. You can't complain when you are.

  • The Next Clearview AI

  • Chinese knock off (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Just a chinese knock off of what google and facebook started.

    Don't support the knock offs! support American, we can violate your privacy better and it supports american jobs!

  • Why do people use TikTok?

  • Well, Trump placed it under the control of Larry Ellison, the all-around douchebag billionaire CEO of known privacy-hating evil company Oracle. Of course, this would happen. As predicted last year by me and others with a brain: https://developers.slashdot.or... [slashdot.org]

  • With so many tech companies collecting data from users, this is nothing new. TikTok is just the latest one to be doing this. The real issue however, is that this data is often sold & shared with third parties & data brokers. We need strong legislation to combat this, so that details of our private lives stay private. Just a few weeks back there was a story, on how location data could be used to track Pentagon Officials, and even soldiers deployed to "secret" locations.

  • If I post a video of someone other than me, am I legally able to "allow" a 3rd party to collect/save/store/manipulate biometric content of others?

    How does this work for minors? Or a stranger I took video of in a park? Or video of people who have deceased since it was taken?

  • Just publish an app that asks users for their biometrics. Once you have the biometrics you OWN all the people because they can not change their biometric. Good thing the EU, India, China and others are all starting massive biometric ID campaigns so the criminals have a place to use all their sneakily acquired biometrics. Apps may not be able to get raw biometric data from built-in fingerprint readers but cameras can be used instead.

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