In today’s era of breakneck-paced digital development, social media use has become a double-edged sword. It provides an unprecedented degree of connection, but with that comes unprecedented privacy and security risks.
TikTok, a social media platform bewitching young people around the globe, has once more become an international focal point. This is not only a result of social phenomena being pushed and promoted through the platform, but also the hidden potential for data security issues, directly involving the privacy of millions of people.
A recent edition of Fortune magazine published a bombshell report, quoting several former TikTok employees, using nicknames to maintain anonymity. They said that even if TikTok were to openly say that its data from the US were stored entirely in US data centers on US soil, asserting that there was enough distance between the data and TikTok’s China-based founding company, ByteDance, such a statement would be far removed from reality.
The former employees interviewed for the article said that about every 14 days, a massive amount of US user data are transmitted to Beijing. The data include not only users’ real names, e-mails and IP addresses, but also their geolocation data and population statistics for each user’s location.
It is difficult to downplay the risks of such data harvesting.
Although these data are one small part of the overall data TikTok collects, they could be used to carry out precision-targeted attacks on specific people, such as through phishing attempts and other illegal activities, Johns Hopkins University data security specialists said.
Additionally, the data harvesting could be used to conduct mass surveillance and political manipulation.
This is a massive concern for societies that promote democracy and personal freedom.
More concretely, the TikTok issue is an especially weighty issue in Taiwan, a democratic and free society.
The nation has extremely high requirements to fulfill when it comes to data security and personal privacy protection.
However, given the broad use of TikTok among young Taiwanese, the sort of data transfers the company engages in is undoubtedly a challenge for national security. Not only is there a risk to personal data security, but the entire country’s information security environment.
The government has taken steps to face this challenge, with Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷) announcing that he would push for legislation that limits TikTok’s activities. This is an indication of the government’s resolve to protect data security.
However, Taiwanese should not rely solely on government efforts. All of society, from individuals to academic institutions to private enterprises and beyond, must take steps together to protect data.
Taiwanese must raise their own awareness on protecting personal data to avoid leaking information.
With globalization and the daily creep toward digitalization, data security and protection of personal privacy have become worldwide issues.
The fracas surrounding TikTok is a reminder that the whole world is needed to face the challenge.
When it comes to Taiwan, this is not only an issue of technology, but also a vital issue concerning the country’s future and the security of its people. Through the joint efforts of all of society, Taiwan can maintain vigilance in this digital war, safeguard the security of personal data and guarantee the right to privacy.
Fang Kai-hung is an assistant professor at Taipei University of Maritime Technology.
Translated by Tim Smith
As Taiwan’s domestic political crisis deepens, the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) have proposed gutting the country’s national spending, with steep cuts to the critical foreign and defense ministries. While the blue-white coalition alleges that it is merely responding to voters’ concerns about corruption and mismanagement, of which there certainly has been plenty under Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and KMT-led governments, the rationales for their proposed spending cuts lay bare the incoherent foreign policy of the KMT-led coalition. Introduced on the eve of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the KMT’s proposed budget is a terrible opening
To The Honorable Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜): We would like to extend our sincerest regards to you for representing Taiwan at the inauguration of US President Donald Trump on Monday. The Taiwanese-American community was delighted to see that Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan speaker not only received an invitation to attend the event, but successfully made the trip to the US. We sincerely hope that you took this rare opportunity to share Taiwan’s achievements in freedom, democracy and economic development with delegations from other countries. In recent years, Taiwan’s economic growth and world-leading technology industry have been a source of pride for Taiwanese-Americans.
“I compare the Communist Party to my mother,” sings a student at a boarding school in a Tibetan region of China’s Qinghai province. “If faith has a color,” others at a different school sing, “it would surely be Chinese red.” In a major story for the New York Times this month, Chris Buckley wrote about the forced placement of hundreds of thousands of Tibetan children in boarding schools, where many suffer physical and psychological abuse. Separating these children from their families, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aims to substitute itself for their parents and for their religion. Buckley’s reporting is
Last week, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), together holding more than half of the legislative seats, cut about NT$94 billion (US$2.85 billion) from the yearly budget. The cuts include 60 percent of the government’s advertising budget, 10 percent of administrative expenses, 3 percent of the military budget, and 60 percent of the international travel, overseas education and training allowances. In addition, the two parties have proposed freezing the budgets of many ministries and departments, including NT$1.8 billion from the Ministry of National Defense’s Indigenous Defense Submarine program — 90 percent of the program’s proposed
RSS