Popular short-form video-sharing service TikTok quietly revised its privacy policy in the U.S., allowing it to automatically collect biometric information such as faceprints and voiceprints from the content its users post on the platform.
The policy change, first spotted by TechCrunch, went into effect on June 2. TikTok users who reside in the European Economic Area (EEA), the U.K., Switzerland, and other geographies (excluding India) where the service operates are exempted from the changes.
"We may collect biometric identifiers and biometric information as defined under U.S. 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 ByteDance-owned company
said in a newly introduced section called "Image and Audio Information."
On top of this, the company's privacy policy also notes that it may collect information about "the nature of the audio, and the text of the words spoken in your User Content" so as to "enable special video effects, for content moderation, for demographic classification, for content and ad recommendations, and for other non-personally-identifying operations."
thehackernews.com
