A Third Of Britons Fear Having Their Personal Data Stolen On TikTok

The TikTok app has become one of the most popular apps among girls in the UK. (photo: May Gauthier / Unsplash)

JAKARTA - TikTok has recently dominated social media. But this has nearly a third of Britons worried that the app might share their personal data with the Chinese government. This fact was revealed from a book by Chris Stokel-Walker, TikTok Boom.

According to the demographics for the app, quoted by The Guardian, Wednesday 13 July, a third of Britons between the ages of 18 and 34 are not only worried, they believe TikTok will turn over their data at the request of China.

Based on opinion polls from Opinium, it shows that TikTok still has reputation problems. Even if they are no longer serious about holding back the phenomenal growth in their applications.

“TikTok has vehemently denied all allegations that it will share data with the Chinese state, and has spent the last two years trying to prove its transparency, but my book shows people not to buy it,” said TikTok Boom author Chris Stokel-Walker.

"As we've seen with its battles over its global headquarters, successive parliamentary election committee hearings and its struggle for survival in the United States, the app has been embroiled in a battle bigger than the success of TikTok alone."

Chris said TikTok has been caught in a geopolitical dogfight between China and the rest of the world, and events beyond its control are shaping the public's perception of how it operates in the most risky ways.

Nevertheless, TikTok is proving itself by continuing to grow. Data from AppAnnie, a mobile analytics company, reveals that the average UK user of the Android version spent nearly 25 hours on TikTok in May this year, nearly double the amount of time measured in December 2019.

That figure beats YouTube, where Britons spend an average of 17 hours a month. But why is Google then confident to invest significant effort in YouTube Shorts, a competitor to TikTok.

Another Ofcom report also states, TikTok is very popular with girls. Six per cent of British girls aged between seven and 12 described it as their favorite app, placing it third after YouTube and Roblox.

Among those teens, 12 percent said it was their favorite app, which led to the app being number one, while Instagram and Snapchat came in second and third. Among boys, the app came in at number seven for the younger group and 10 for the teens, with three percent saying it was their favorite app.

Still in his book, Stokel-Walker explains that half of Britons describe it as a "Chinese-owned app" and 5 percent of them disagree.

Indeed TikTok is a subsidiary of Bytedance, which is based in China. But Bytedance is one of the largest start-ups in China, with 100,000 employees and annual revenue of nearly $40 billion.