TikTok’s new U.S. ownership has brought quieter but deeper changes to location tracking, artificial intelligence data collection and ad targeting.
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TikTok and privacy have always been strange bedfellows.
Pop-ups on apps catch the attention of most people, others may blink and agree to new pop-ups. When U.S. users open the app, the scroll bar is blocked until they accept new terms related to TikTok’s transition to U.S. majority ownership. On the surface, this is about compliance and survival. In practice, it has quietly reshaped the information platforms can see, store and sell about the people who power them.
The new entity, TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, was formed after the U.S. government pushed for the platform to be cut off from Chinese control. Among the investors is Oracle, a name that tends to make privacy watchers sit upright. TikTok declined to comment on specifics, which only added to curiosity. The real story is in the fine print.
First is the location. TikTok has insisted for years that it does not collect GPS-level location data from U.S. users. That era is over. Under the new policy, TikTok can now collect precise location data, rather than just an approximate signal from an IP address or SIM region, if a user has location services enabled. This puts it in the same data neighborhood as apps like Instagram and X. The difference is that TikTok is making this shift at a time when trust is already fragile.
Then there’s artificial intelligence. TikTok has officially added artificial intelligence interactions to the list of data it can collect. It is now possible to log prompts, questions, uploaded files, generated responses, and even metadata about when and how these interactions occurred. In other words, if you are having a conversation with TikTok’s AI tools, that conversation may be stored, analyzed, and tied back to your account.
Finally, advertising. TikTok’s advertising ambitions are no longer limited to its own app. The updated policy expands how user data is used across the broader internet through the TikTok advertising network. Advertisers and publishers can share platform behavior, and TikTok can return the favor by serving targeted ads outside its own walls. Your TikTok data may be tracking you now more than before.
Some say this doesn’t mean TikTok is suddenly evil, but people I know don’t use the app anymore. The scroll ends here.
