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Especially tiktok is still live, and there it's super obvious they upload the contact list. First: they ask you. More importantly though: you don't even need to

Especially tiktok is still live, and there it's super obvious they upload the contact list. First: they ask you. More importantly though: you don't even need to search for someone or someone's phone. You open the app and get 3 people suggested you never even knew had a tiktok account. Really really creepy when you just exchanged numbers with someone and you can see all their 50 tiktoks. Happened to me with a girl I matched online - funny for me to see her videos, for her it was super creepy.

madeofpalk 3y ago
This happens the other way around as well (and is why, imho, both Android and iOS should flat out remove the capability from their platforms) - if TikTok knows your phone number for whatever reason, and the OTHER person uploads their contacts with you in it, that's enough to create the connection and start prompting you to friend them.
- lloeki 3y ago
  Right, I can deny contact uploading all day long, as long as a bunch of people that have my number upload theirs to foostter it quickly paints a social graph where I'm† precisely pinpointed even though I did not interact with foostter. † Or a hash but that's barely pseudonymous. The social graph alone could constitute PII as it could easily identify me unequivocally, but here's no way for me nor anyone outside foostter to know what happens internally, let alone request erasure.
troupo 3y ago
> You open the app and get 3 people suggested you never even knew had a tiktok account. You send links to friends, and they immediately pop up as contact suggestions, too. TikTok is really keen on tracking those relationships down
- droopyEyelids 3y ago
  The difference here is tiktok surfaces their tracking to the user in a friend-suggestion feature. Facebook (and others im sure) absolutely do the same thing. It's just that on facebook there is no attribution to how they generated the suggestion when the person appears on the 'people you might know' feed
EasyMark 3y ago
Could they simply be buying advertising databases which have possible connections for your name and ASL/phone number? Like the CIA and FBI seem to be doing. Plus likely your friends just give it whatever information it ask for so they already have your info anyway?
- qingcharles 3y ago
  TikTok is buying data from almost everywhere. I browse to almost any site (on my desktop) and within minutes I am seeing ads on TikTok (on my phone) for the same/similar products.

madeofpalk 3y ago

This happens the other way around as well (and is why, imho, both Android and iOS should flat out remove the capability from their platforms) - if TikTok knows your phone number for whatever reason, and the OTHER person uploads their contacts with you in it, that's enough to create the connection and start prompting you to friend them.

lloeki 3y ago
Right, I can deny contact uploading all day long, as long as a bunch of people that have my number upload theirs to foostter it quickly paints a social graph where I'm† precisely pinpointed even though I did not interact with foostter. † Or a hash but that's barely pseudonymous. The social graph alone could constitute PII as it could easily identify me unequivocally, but here's no way for me nor anyone outside foostter to know what happens internally, let alone request erasure.

troupo 3y ago

> You open the app and get 3 people suggested you never even knew had a tiktok account. You send links to friends, and they immediately pop up as contact suggestions, too. TikTok is really keen on tracking those relationships down

droopyEyelids 3y ago
The difference here is tiktok surfaces their tracking to the user in a friend-suggestion feature. Facebook (and others im sure) absolutely do the same thing. It's just that on facebook there is no attribution to how they generated the suggestion when the person appears on the 'people you might know' feed

EasyMark 3y ago

Could they simply be buying advertising databases which have possible connections for your name and ASL/phone number? Like the CIA and FBI seem to be doing. Plus likely your friends just give it whatever information it ask for so they already have your info anyway?

qingcharles 3y ago
TikTok is buying data from almost everywhere. I browse to almost any site (on my desktop) and within minutes I am seeing ads on TikTok (on my phone) for the same/similar products.