this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024
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Just banning foreign apps? That's a knee-jerk reaction, not a solution. We need to know what's in the code, not just where an app's made. Security comes from transparency, not blind bans. Let's not mix xenophobia with tech policy.
Are you daft? Yes. We know what they are doing. Apps inherently have access to a lot of user data. It's not about trust in the code, it's about trust in the company. No amount of looking at TikTok's source code changes what the company may or may not do with all that data it is absolutely collecting.
If you examine the source code of all popular apps you will find that they all collect and send home as much user data as the user has permitted, which is usually a lot. This information accomplishes nothing. The reason that some apps should be banned is because of what the company does with that data and how it doesn't comply with laws from the banning country.
This all stems from a useless talking point made by a politician which sounds great but doesn't actually accomplish anything. Feel free to keep arguing, but at this point you're basically just telling me that the internet is a series of tubes.
Trust in the company is important, but it's not the whole picture. Reviewing source code can reveal how data is handled on the front end, which is our first line of defense. If the front-end code is designed to collect more data than it should, that's a problem, regardless of the company's reputation.
Read this: https://www.techradar.com/computing/cyber-security/mobile-privacy-over-7-out-of-10-apps-collect-more-data-than-needed
It's all about user-permissions, which users are granting. It is already known what data apps are collecting. Can you guess what the authors of the study didn't have in order to determine what the apps are doing? The source code.