TikTok Has Got to Go

Concerns about Chinese influence on our elections encompass not just espionage and illicit finance, but the smartphone in your hand – is the Biden administration paying attention?

You are being spied upon.

Right now.

That smartphone you have with you every waking moment is a sophisticated surveillance device that, in exchange for offering you voice and text connectivity plus Internet access, collects data about everything you do. What websites you visit, what you buy, whom you communicate with – a record of your private habits of every variety. If you’ve ever had Google “suggest” items or searches based on conversations you recently had on your smartphone, you have a glimpse into what’s going on all around you.

The privacy implications of all this are staggering. In truth, we have no privacy anymore. We’ve given it away freely, in exchange for cheap, nonstop connectivity. The reality is that private companies now have a complete window into your life which even your closest friends and relatives don’t enjoy.

Those private companies now know everything about you: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Moreover, your most personal data is for sale. Facebook, Amazon, and Google know vastly more about you than the U.S. Government does, and they’re getting rich off your secrets. Back in 2013, when Ed Snowden flew to Moscow with over a million classified documents stolen from the National Security Agency, I pointed out that, whatever NSA was doing, it knows a lot less about you than your smartphone does – and all the firms you’re freely giving your data to on that device.