It’s a ‘Tiking’ time bomb.
The NYPD has been usually posting content to TikTok on its official page despite warnings from state and federal intelligence officials that communist China could use the app to spy on users.
Latest York’s Finest operate one of the crucial popular TikTok pages of any police department within the US — with nearly 240,000 followers and 1.7 million likes.
Its first post in September 2021 showed a person being rescued from flood waters in Central Park. It has since remodeled 130 more posts including a controversial one last Saturday of concert-goers leaving a Drake show on the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Critics felt they were being surveilled, however the NYPD insisted its cops were simply highlighting a community event.
The NYPD’s TikTok activity comes as dozens of other states have opted to ban TikTok on government devices over fears that data might be used to compromise users.
“The chance outweighs the profit here … it is a known national security risk,” said state Sen. Kevin Thomas (D-Nassau), who penned a bill last 12 months to ban TikTok on government-issue devices. “It’s a rival foreign country using it for tactics that aren’t understood.”
The bill is meant to deal with concerns that TikTok — which is owned by Beijing-headquartered tech company ByteDance, which is beholden to the Chinese government — might be used to gather user data, which could later be used as blackmail or leverage.
And that’s why Thomas said the NYPD mustn’t even use the app for investigative purposes, let alone to have a good time National Donut Day.
“It’s scary,” he added, likening the problems to an episode of the hit dystopian sci-fi Netflix series Black Mirror, a drama exploring techno-paranoia. “It’s a matter of what the opposite side is checking out about us.”
Thomas said he’s optimistic his bill will pass after garnering bipartisan support.
Earlier this month, each Ohio and Latest Jersey announced similar bans on the app on state and native government-issue devices.
Latest Jersey officials said in an announcement that analyses showed the app was collecting keystrokes, taking screen grabs of the user’s device every few seconds, and accessing files stored as copied items on the phone.
“That data may include passwords and other sensitive information – not only into the TikTok app, but additionally the opposite apps used on a tool, e.g., email, text messages, eHealth apps, etc..,” the statement read.
FBI Director Christopher Wray told a House Homeland Security Committee in November that the bureau has “national security concerns” over the app, which could also potentially be used to regulate software on the devices on which it’s downloaded.
The next month, Forbes reported that the app had been used to spy on American journalists, although TikTok has since proposed having an independent, third-party monitor check the social media app’s algorithms to find out if the Chinese government is accessing Americans’ user data.
A TikTok spokesperson said the corporate has been working with the Committee on Foreign Investment within the U.S. for greater than two years to give you a package of measures to deal with concerns over user data.
“Our team is targeted on continuing to transient elected officials about the main points of those robust plans and about our service,”
The NYPD didn’t reply to requests for comment regarding its use of the app.
