Posted on Monday, December 23 2019 @ 13:38 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
NY Times
claims chat tool ToTok is secretly a spy app from the United Arab Emirates. An investigation by the paper as well as American officials familiar with a classified intelligence assessment reveal the UAE tracks every conversation, movement, relationship, appointment, sound, and image of ToTok users.
ToTok, introduced only months ago, was downloaded millions of times from the Apple and Google app stores by users throughout the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. While the majority of its users are in the Emirates, ToTok surged to become one of the most downloaded social apps in the United States last week, according to app rankings and App Annie, a research firm.
In somewhat related news, Reuters
reports that the US Navy has banned the use of TikTok (not to be confused with ToTok). This massively popular short video service is deemed as a security risk:
A bulletin issued by the Navy on Tuesday showed up on a Facebook page serving military members, saying users of government issued mobile devices who had TikTok and did not remove the app would be blocked from the Navy Marine Corps Intranet.
The Navy refused to go into detail what dangers TikTok poses, and Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Uriah Orland said the order simply is an effort to "address existing and emerging threats."