Felix Krause, founder of fastlane.tools, released a report stating that the app TikTok for iOS It records user keystrokes in such a way that, at least potentially, the data could be received by ByteDance’s servers and those of other companies.

Krause explains that every time a link is opened with the TikTok iOS app, the web page is loaded into the web browser present in the app (which, due to Apple’s limitations, must rely on the default WebKit rendering engine). in a system). According to Krause’s version, “TikTok subscribes to all keyboard input (including passwords, credit card information, etc.) and every touch on the screen, such as the buttons and links you click.”

It is important to note that the logging of keystrokes is transmitted through any third-party websites that are loaded from the TikTok iOS app. This feature was implemented using JavaScript (a common technology in these cases) and it was initially unknown what and how ByteDance uses this data.

How could it be otherwise, the report by Felix Kraus caused a certain stir, especially when we see the enormous popularity of a video service that also fulfills the function of a social network. Virtually forced to intervene, TikTok didn’t respond directly to Krause, saying the following via Forbes:

“Like other platforms, we use the browser in the app to provide an optimal user experience, but the JavaScript code in question is only used for debugging, troubleshooting and performance monitoring of this environment, such as checking page load speed. or if it fails”.

In short, that TikTok, while trying to play down the matter and saying it doesn’t use the code to record keystrokes, eventually confirms Felix Kraus’ findings.. Unfortunately, this is nothing new, but rather a practice that has been around for many years and is used by many popular services and websites. TikTok itself already has some shady precedent.

If you look at the report, you will see that TikTok is not the only service that engages in questionable practices, as Instagram is doing something similar, but apparently without recording keystrokes. Many of these practices are allowed by Apple due to the way the internet works, full of corporate trackers that go without saying, but TikTok is able to act as keylogger It is about crossing a line that the Cupertino giant should not allow.