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Data Privacy Concerns Linger as TikTok Lies in Limbo

Gen Z TikTok users are not too worried about cybersecurity or their data from the app, but experts say they should be

The United States lawmakers and intelligence community have fears about China's access to U.S. data. Credit: Shutterstock/Ascannio
Credit: Shutterstock/Ascannio

The social media platform TikTok has millions of users in the United States alone. The app seems to be ubiquitous in modern daily life, from sharing book recommendations to self-diagnosing health issues. There is an ongoing debate about the merits and harms of the app. U.S. politicians and intelligence community members have expressed concerns over the past few years about China’s access to and potential use of TikTok’s data. For many Generation Z users, what happens to their TikTok data seems to be an unknown and not a top issue.

Kayleigh Hendy, 22, has had TikTok for the past 10 years since it was called Musical.ly. Hendy told Trill Magazine she loves using it for cooking recipes, gift ideas, stress relief and fashion advice. Penelope Jennings, 20, is an emerging sports journalist and avid user. She uses TikTok because it is great for watching sports and crochet videos. Hendy and Jennings both said they do need and want to learn more about their TikTok data and security, but do not consider the issue a priority.

A Brief Background of TikTok and U.S. Politics

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in August 2020. The order said ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, must divest from operations. It also ordered American companies to not do business with ByteDance subsidiaries. Former President Joseph Biden did not sign a new order when he entered office that November.

Buzzfeed reported in December 2022 that ByteDance employees and Chinese engineers had access to and obtained American user data. Former FBI Director Christopher Wray shared some of the dangers of TikTok in an interview with Lester Holt that same month.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill overwhelmingly on March 13, 2024 to ban TikTok from the U.S. This bipartisan effort came after increased national security fears of foreign tech influence.

The Supreme Court upheld the ban on Jan. 15, 2025. TikTok stopped working on Jan.18 around 9:00 p.m. EST. Trump then paused the ban 13 hours later and gave ByteDance a one-time, 75-day extension to sell the app.

TikTok stopped working in the United States on Jan. 18, 2025 for 13 hours immediately following a ban of the app. Credit: Fusco/Screenshot
A screenshot of TikTok’s homepage after the app stopped working in the United States on Jan. 18, 2025.

Digital Colonization, Sovereignty and the U.S.-China Tech Rivalry

The TikTok ban is part of a “wider geopolitical war,” Mitchell Gallagher, a Doctoral candidate at Wayne State University, told Trill Magazine. Gallagher said politicians worry that TikTok’s algorithm could be manipulated to dictate “pro-China narratives” and “suppress anything that is anti-China.” Doing so could influence American public opinion. Other concerns raised by lawmakers include privacy violations and election interference.

Democrats and Republicans rarely agree in this polarized situation right now in the U.S., but both sides do think that TikTok is a threat to American democracy and digital sovereignty.

Mitchell Gallagher, 2025

Gallagher defines Digital Colonialism as an “invisible territorial penetration” of borderless online infrastructure where users and their data are harvested, economically extracted, subjugated, measured and commodified by a political actor or state. Even though there is no physical violence or territorial occupation like traditional colonization, Gallagher said that it is still “fundamentally about converting human experiences into economic value.”

With data colonization, we see an erasure of individual agency and personal autonomy … What is interesting is that [TikTok] has made digital colonization feel not only painless but actually pleasurable. People enjoy what they are doing on TikTok and they’re eagerly participating in it.

Gallagher, 2025

Michael Geringer, a tenured professor teaching international business strategy at Ohio University, said that a ban on TikTok is a necessary solution. However, Geringer said other actions such as setting American guidelines for technology and who has access to data are necessary to consider.

He explained because technology is rapidly advancing, someone needs to share information about it with the public. Geringer pointed out that viewing a video of kittens may seem harmless, but users should not be naive.

There is a potential to educate people, but it is very hard for people to get a quick understanding of complicated and often nuanced issues like this. So in these cases where you’re unlikely to get broadscale understanding and behavioral change, I think an appropriate role for government … is to prevent companies from engaging with stuff damaging to the citizenry.

Michael Geringer, 2025

Who Doesn’t Have My Data?

According to Jennings, companies such as Google and Amazon already know a ton about her online behaviour which makes her unconcerned about TikTok. Jennings added that she is not in control of what happens to her data on TikTok or elsewhere.

I am of the view where I assume all my data’s out there anyways. What I think is common around kids my age is that I don’t really care about my data. Like, what are they going to do? [Politicians] are probably right to be concerned, but I kind of like funny animal videos better than worrying about my data.

Penelope Jennings, 2025
TikTok China Security Concerns
ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, is based in China leading politicians to have bipartisan concerns for U.S. national security. Credit: Shutterstock/Wilson.

Hendy and Jennings agree that thier data is already out there and they can’t change that fact.

When I speak to my parents and they bring up data, I take it as something that isn’t as serious because I’ve been on the internet for a long, long time. And so have many people my age. But, I got a message from Apple last week saying that my TikTok password was in a data leak and I thought, whoa, that’s not great to hear.”

Kayleigh Hendy, 2025

Hendy said that she “strongly disagrees” with the ban and thinks it “tramples on a line” of free speech and censorship. She added that she is “nervous” about the app being sold to and run like Meta.

“I definitely think [the ban] messes with a strong portion of an entire generation’s identity. I know people say 170 million people use the app. That is a lot of people including those who use it for small business, so I think a ban is a poor choice on any administration’s part.”

Hendy, 2025

The Nitty Gritty of Data Harvesting

The Chinese Communist Party passed the “Cybersecurity Law of the People’s Republic of China” in November 2017. The law mandates that tech companies are required to hand over their data if Chinese intelligence agencies request it.

Gallagher said that lawmakers’ suspicions about Chinese access to TikTok are valid. He has worked in China for six years and specializes in international relations theory, explained the data ByteDance harvests include people’s location, search history, viewing history, keystroke patterns and biometrics (i.e. face and voice prints). 

ByteDance could be compelled under Chinese law to hand all this data over to [Chinese Community Party] officials which would then allow for mass surveillance and even blackmail of American citizens, if worst came to worst. It is literally allowing a foreign power to have a direct window into the personal preferences and the psychological patterns of millions of people.

Gallagher, 2025

There are very real fears and considerations about China’s access to TikTok data, Geringer said. He added that in an “era of machine learning and artificial intelligence,” harvesting data is more common and remains a U.S. national security risk.

I think the concern is that state players could very well be using information to gain understanding and allow the targeting of individuals for nefarious purposes, such as being able to threaten them.

Geringer, 2025

Hannah Langenfeld is a news team intern for Trill Magazine based in Washington D.C. Langenfeld is interested in writing about global inequality and identity, race, gender and culture in the context of foreign policy and affairs. She wants to eventually be an an investigative reporter covering international news.

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