Is TikTok Bad for Data Privacy?

TikTok collects large amounts of user data — including IP addresses, keystroke patterns, and even biometric faceprint data. It's a given that the platform tracks your location, your interactions, and your personal information. 

In early 2026, TikTok updated its privacy terms, and the company now explicitly acknowledges the collection of users’ precise GPS-derived location data if permission is granted, a notable change from prior versions of its policy that stated precise GPS location was not collected for U.S. users.

None of this is good from a data privacy perspective, but research shows that TikTok’s data collection practices are similar to those of other social media platforms — leaving average users to wonder: Is TikTok bad? Read on as we dissect TikTok’s data collection practices to find out whether TikTok is safe to use from a data privacy perspective, plus steps you can take (such as limiting what data brokers and third parties can access about you) to reduce how much of your personal information circulates beyond the app itself.

What data does TikTok collect?

TikTok’s privacy policy shows that the app doesn’t just track what you watch — it tracks how you behave, where you go, who you know, what you say privately, and even what you almost share.

Here are the most concerning parts of the policy that stood out to us:

Information you actively give TikTok

• Everything you create, even drafts and unsaved videos: TikTok admits it can collect videos, photos, audio, and text before you publish or save them, meaning content you never intended to share may still be analyzed.

• Private messages and shopping chats: This includes messages sent to friends and conversations with sellers through TikTok’s in-app shopping tools.

• Sensitive personal details, if you talk about them: If your content mentions things like mental health, sexual orientation, immigration status, religious beliefs, or financial hardship, TikTok may process that information — even though it claims it’s “voluntary.”

• Clipboard access (when enabled): TikTok can access text and images you copy on your device, which may include passwords, notes, links, or private messages copied from other apps.

• Your real-world identity and finances: This can include payment card details, purchase history, billing addresses, and in some cases government ID (like a driver’s license) for verification.

• Your contacts: If you sync contacts, TikTok can collect names, phone numbers, and emails of people who may not even use TikTok, and then match them to accounts.

• AI conversations: Anything you type into TikTok’s AI tools, including prompts, questions, and uploaded files, can be collected and stored.

What TikTok collects automatically

• Your precise or approximate physical location: TikTok can infer location from your IP address and SIM card — and if you allow location services, it can collect precise GPS-level location data.
• Keystroke patterns and rhythms: This goes beyond what you type — it can include how you type, a behavioral signal often associated with biometric tracking.
• Biometric data from your videos: TikTok may analyze your face (faceprints), your voice (voiceprints), body features, and movement. This data can be used for effects, moderation, ad targeting, and demographic classification.
• Everything about your device: Including IP address, device model, battery state, audio settings and connected microphones and headsets, app and file names, and advertising identifiers.
• Cross-device tracking: TikTok assigns unique device and user IDs and may use them to link your activity across multiple devices.
• In-app browsing behavior: If you open links inside TikTok, the platform can track what sites you visit and how you interact with them.

What TikTok gets about you from other companies and sources

• Your activity outside TikTok: Advertisers and partners can send TikTok data about websites you visit, products you buy, and apps you download.
• Hashed emails and phone numbers: These identifiers can be used to match you across platforms and ad networks, even if you never explicitly gave TikTok that data.
• Information from other people: TikTok may collect information about you if someone mentions you in a video or message, you appear in content posted by others, or someone submits a complaint, report, or appeal about you.
• Government and public sources: TikTok states it may collect information from government authorities, professional organizations, and publicly available databases.

What does TikTok do with my data?

According to its privacy policy, TikTok doesn’t just use your data to run the app — it uses it to analyze you, profile you, and train its systems.

Here are the most significant and concerning uses of the data TikTok collects:

• Monitoring your behavior across devices: TikTok says it can track and analyze how you use the app across multiple devices, helping it build a more complete profile of you over time.
• Scanning and analyzing private content: TikTok states it may scan, analyze, and review user content, private messages, AI interactions, and metadata — not just public posts — to improve its systems and enforce policies.
• Training AI and machine-learning models: Your videos, messages, interactions, and behavior may be used to train and improve TikTok’s algorithms, including recommendation systems and AI tools.
• Highly personalized behavioral profiling: TikTok uses collected data to infer personal traits such as age, gender, and interests, even if you never explicitly share that information.
• Algorithmic control of what you see: Your data powers TikTok’s “For You” feed, shaping what content is shown, promoted, suppressed, or repeatedly surfaced to you.
• Targeted advertising and ad performance tracking: TikTok uses your data to target ads, measure how you respond to them, and refine advertising strategies, including ads you may see on other platforms.
• Account discovery and social graph building: Your information may be used to suggest your account to others, suggest others to you, and map social connections, even when you haven’t directly interacted.

In plain terms, TikTok uses your data not just to show videos, but to model your behavior, infer who you are, predict what you’ll do next, and train systems that grow more invasive over time.

How to protect your data on TikTok

Due to expanded data practices and regulatory scrutiny, safeguarding your privacy has become even more important. Consider the following:

1. Use a data removal service

TikTok’s privacy policy states that it may collect information about you from publicly available sources and third parties — a category that often includes data brokers. These companies compile detailed profiles using public records, online activity, and commercial data, which platforms like TikTok can use to supplement what they already know about you.

Data removal tools like Incogni help counter this by finding your personal information in major data broker databases and submitting opt-out and deletion requests on your behalf. This can reduce how much off-platform data TikTok and its advertising partners can access, making it harder to enrich your profile or link your activity across services.

If you’re serious about limiting third-party profiling, using a data removal service is one of the most effective steps you can take. You may not be able to stop TikTok from collecting in-app data, but tools like Incogni help cut off the external data pipelines that feed into broader tracking and targeting.

2. Make your TikTok account private

Set your account to private so only people connected to you will be able to access your content. This setting is also important in making TikTok safe for kids and minors, as all accounts are set to public by default.

1. Open your profile page.
2. Select the menu button located in the top-right corner of the app and choose Privacy and settings.
3. Under the Privacy and safety option, toggle Private account to on.

3. Limit who sends you direct messages

Messages from unknown users can contain phishing attempts, such as malicious links or TikTok scams, that could compromise your data. This is why we recommend that only friends can send you direct messages.

1. Navigate to Privacy and safety and select Who can send messages to me.
2. Choose the option that works best for you: Everyone, Friends, or Off.

4. Limit who comments on your posts

Malicious actors can hide viruses in links, even in comments, which is why we recommend allowing only friends to comment on your posts.

1. Under Privacy and safety, select Who can send me comments.
2. Selecting Friends will allow only people you know to comment on your posts.
3. You can also disable comments completely on specific posts by selecting 'Comments off' in the menu button of the post.

5. Control how your account is suggested to others/searched for

Changing this setting can reduce the number of fake or malicious accounts that will try to add you in order to send you scams and malware.

1. Within Privacy and settings, select Suggest your account to others.
2. Turn off the toggle Suggest your account to others.
3. With this setting turned off, your account will not come up in search engine results and will not be suggested to users with whom you are not already connected.

6. Use two-factor authentication

Two-factor authentication (2FA) can prevent someone from logging into your account on a different device even if they have your password information.

1. Select Profile.
2. Select the menu button located in the top-right corner of the app.
3. Select Security and login > 2-step verification.
4. Select your preferred verification method (SMS, email, or password).
5. Select Turn on. Enter your password and any additional credentials necessary. The app will guide you through the rest of the process.

7. Keep TikTok updated and use antivirus

When new forms of malware are discovered, companies like TikTok update their apps to protect against these viruses. Be sure to always keep TikTok up to date with the most recent patch to take advantage of these protections. Since companies can’t always catch every new virus before it spreads, you should consider installing some form of antivirus on the device on which you use TikTok.

FAQs

Bottom line: Is TikTok safe?

In a world where every app, website, and corporate entity is vying for your personal data, “safe” is a relative term. It is publicly known that TikTok collects vast amounts of data from its user base and shares that data with numerous third parties. However, its practices are not significantly different from those of other social media apps.

If you have high-level privacy concerns, TikTok may not be a safe option for you. Otherwise, to stay safe on social media platforms like TikTok, be sure to remove your information from data brokers with a data removal tool, adjust your privacy settings, and install antivirus software.