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TikTok is growing its data harvesting empire, and avoiding the app won’t protect you – but some easy steps can keep you safe.
TikTok keeps track of everything you do on its app – no surprises there. What's less obvious is how the company follows you around other parts of the internet that have nothing to do with TikTok.
In fact, TikTok collects sensitive and potentially embarrassing information about you even if you've never used the app. Over the past week, I've watched websites sending TikTok data about cancer diagnoses, fertility and even mental health crises. It's part of a tracking empire that extends far beyond the social media platform. Now, thanks to a new set of features, TikTok is poised to expand its network and see even more details about your life.
The change comes just weeks after the sale of TikTok's US operations to a group of companies with ties to US President Donald Trump. The deal has led to fresh privacy concerns from some human rights experts and users, though TikTok says it has transparent guidelines on how it responds to government requests for data.
Fortunately, this is a privacy story with a positive note. Some easy steps you can take in about five minutes will help you keep your information out of TikTok's hands.
The issue centres around major changes to TikTok's "pixel", a tracking tool that companies use to monitor your online behaviour. I asked a cybersecurity company called Disconnect to analyse it. They found the updated TikTok pixel collects information in unusual ways compared to its competitors.
"It's extremely invasive," says Patrick Jackson, chief technology officer at Disconnect. "This expanded data sharing, when you do analysis of the actual pixel code, you see things that look really bad."
TikTok says its users are informed about its data practices in privacy policies and notifications in some cases. The company also says it gives people privacy settings to take control.
"TikTok empowers users with transparent information about its privacy practices and gives them multiple tools to customise their experience," a TikTok spokesperson says. "Advertising pixels are industry standard and used widely across social and media platforms, including by the BBC."
But most people might not realise that TikTok holds data about them even if they have never used the social media platform.
Tracking pixels are nothing new. For years, companies that run advertising networks – including Google, Meta and hundreds of others – have used them to eavesdrop on what people do across the web. They're an invisible image the size of one pixel of your screen that loads in the background of a website, full of data-harvesting tech. They're everywhere, and they're constantly watching you.
Here's how it works. TikTok, for example, encourages companies to put pixels on their websites to help the social media giant harvest more data. Let's say I have an online shoe store. If I use a pixel, it lets TikTok collect lots of data about my customers in order to show them targeted ads. Plus, it helps TikTok figure out whether people who see those shoe ads end up making a purchase. That way, I know the ads I paid for are working, and maybe I'll pay for more. (Like most news organisations, the BBC uses analytics tools and shares data with advertising partners in accordance with our privacy policy. The BBC does not use TikTok tracking pixels on its website or place advertising pixels on third-party sites.)
When it's shoe store data, the information might be innocuous. But I've reported on TikTok's data collection for years and pixels can collect extremely personal information.
For example, last week I visited the website for a cancer support group. According to Disconnect, when I clicked a button on a form that said I was a cancer patient or a survivor, the website sent TikTok my email address along with those details. A women's health company sent TikTok data when I looked at fertility tests. A mental health organisation pinged TikTok when I indicated I'm looking for a crisis counsellor. Websites that use pixels send data about every single visitor, so it doesn't matter if you don't have a TikTok account.
A TikTok spokesperson says, essentially, that this isn't TikTok's responsibility. They say websites are required to abide by privacy laws and tell you about their data practices. TikTok says websites are prohibited from sharing certain kinds of sensitive information, such as health data. And the company says it takes proactive steps to alert websites that share anything inappropriate.
Many of the world's top websites have pixel trackers on them that send data back to big tech companies (Credit: Serenity Strull/ BBC)
If you're concerned about these individual websites you're missing the point. Critics say the issue is that large tech companies like TikTok are increasingly following everything you do online. According to DuckDuckGo, a privacy company, TikTok has trackers on 5% of the world's top websites. That number has grown steadily, though it's nothing compared to Google with trackers on almost 72% of top websites and Meta at about 21%.
"This is verbatim the playbook that Google and Meta have used over the years," says Peter Dolanjski, executive director of product at DuckDuckGo. They started collecting small amounts of data and grew that into an empire that has massive visibility into your daily life, he says.
All of this data could mean you see ads that are more tailored to you, which you might like. But these detailed records of your personal life wouldn't exist if tech companies weren't surveilling you, and it exposes you to all kinds of risks, Dolanjski says.
"Algorithms can use this data to exploit you," he says. "It could be coercing you to buy something, it could be political campaigns, it could be price discrimination." Advertising data has been used for all kinds damaging purposes, from alleged civil rights violations to sexual discrimination.
TikTok's pixel is years old, but it just shifted in some major ways. On 22 January 2026, when TikTok's US operation officially changed hands, users had to agree to a new set of data collection practices. That includes a new advertising network that TikTok will use to show targeted ads on other people's websites. To facilitate that new advertising system, TikTok updated its pixel.
In the past, TikTok's pixel basically just told companies if their ads were generating sales in the app itself. Now, the pixel will help companies follow users who see an ad when they leave TikTok and make a purchase elsewhere.
That probably means more companies will buy TikTok ads and the pixel will show up in more places, according to Arielle Garcia, chief operating officer at Check My Ads, a digital advertising watchdog group. In other words, TikTok's tracking empire is set to expand. "These tools naturally make the platform more attractive to advertisers, which is ultimately how ad platforms grow," Garcia says.
Keeping Tabs
Thomas Germain is a senior technology journalist at the BBC. He writes the column Keeping Tabs and co-hosts the podcast The Interface. His work uncovers the hidden systems that run your digital life, and how you can live better inside them.
Disconnect found TikTok's pixel now collects more information than ever before, automatically intercepting data that websites are sending to Google. Experts tell the BBC this is unusually invasive. "They're silently capturing that data without the site owner explicitly sharing that information with TikTok," Jackson says, and that means websites might unintentionally send TikTok even more data than they intend to.
TikTok disagrees. A spokesperson says TikTok is clear about what data the pixel collects, and companies can just set up their websites differently if they don't want TikTok to see what they send Google. (Google did not respond to a request for comment.)
TikTok also has some privacy controls you can use. Users can "clear" the data TikTok collects with pixels using a setting in the app. People who don't have an account can ask TikTok to delete any data it has about you.
But if you want to stop the data collection before it happens, you need additional steps.
There's good news and bad news. Let's start with the cheerful stuff.
The best option? Use a more private web browser. I know switching seems like a pain, but it's easy to import your bookmarks. Try it.
Something like 71% of people use Google Chrome, which has been found in preliminary academic research to leak more information than many competitors. Privacy experts often recommend the DuckDuckGo browser and Brave, which are specifically built to safeguard data. Firefox and Safari are considered better options than Chrome, though they're less strict about privacy by default.
If switching browsers is too much, install a browser extension that blocks these trackers. I asked Disconnect and DuckDuckGo to help with this article because they both make tracker blockers, but there are other options, including Privacy Badger and Ghostery. Certain ad blockers also block some data harvesting, including AdBlock Plus and uBlock Origin. DuckDuckGo has a chart comparing which ad blockers do it best. Just don't install browser extensions that aren't recommended by reputable sources – it's just like installing an app. Some are dicey.
Now the bad news. Following those two steps will block the TikTok pixel and lots of other privacy invasions. But I won't pretend your data problems are solved.
There are lots of other ways that companies share data with TikTok, Google, Meta and other advertising companies. Companies collect data about you and send it directly to the tech giants from their own servers, for example. "It's a black box, I can't tell you how often that's used because it all happens behind the scenes," says Dolanjski. "It's much harder to protect yourself from that. Your only real defence is to not use the same personal information on different services", so it's harder to match up what you do on different parts of the internet.
The real solution is better privacy laws, says Garcia from Check My Ads. "This isn't a problem limited to one platform. It's a broader advertising technology ecosystem issue that ultimately needs to be addressed through stronger regulation," she says. "The only thing that's really going to change this is when people make their voices heard with lawmakers and make it clear that privacy is something they actually care about."
