Privacy in public spaces is fading by leaps and boundsbut we didn’t expect it to be a TikTok account of a Taylor Swift fan (she always includes her music in the videos she posts) who was going to remind us of it in the worst possible way.
And, with its 90,000 followers, this profile has caused alarm by exploiting the deep-rooted belief that Anything we do with content available on the Internet is valid.
The ‘modus operandi’ of this particular account is very simple: He selects his victims from people who have appeared in other viral videos and/or according to the suggestions of their followers and, once their objective is selected, their own videos document the ‘research’ process, consisting of…
- Capture images of the person.
- Subject them to searches within facial recognition platforms available online for any user (like Pimeyes or FaceCheck.ID).
- Use what is called ‘open source intelligence’ or OSINT to ‘dig’ through data linked to your identity.
- Publicly reveal your private information (full name, social media profile and even your employer).
Does not violate any TikTok content policy
Despite the concern generated by this account, and the requests made for TikTok to remove it, the platform has decided not to take any action in this regard, claiming that It does not violate any of their policies, since it only uses publicly available information.
That is the reason why neither 404 Media (the media that has dedicated a report to this story) nor we have wanted to disclose the address of this account until it is deactivated by TikTok.
One of his victims claims that this shows how vulnerable a person can be “merely by existing in a public space.”
Let us remember that these actions are carried out without the consent of the people involvedwhich raises serious ethical and legal questions… and opens the possibility that the content of said videos, or the recognition technology used in them, will be used, in the words of Eli Lloyd, one of their victims,
“For something worse than a simple thirst for online attention, such as extreme cases of harassmentFor example”.
The case of ‘Matthew’, another of his victims, is paradigmatic:was identified by the aforementioned TikTok profile after having appeared interviewed in a video from another viral content generator, one in which Matthew did not provide his full name or any other personal information..
“I felt a little violated”says this victim, who saw how the publication of his identity generated a wave of unwanted attention on the social networks of his company, whose website (which included a photo of him) was key to identifying him.
The worst thing is that the person responsible for the TikTok account shows no interest in ethically justifying his actions —of course, they have not revealed that their victims are behind any illicit activity or anything of that nature—, but rather, they feed on the mere curiosity of their followers.
In Matthew’s case, without going any further, everything was triggered because another TikTok user, one named Kenny, wrote “I need your @” (that is, your username) citing the original video in which the victim appeared. Kenny did not respond to 404 Media when asked why he wanted to unmask him.
