This wasn’t on my phone. I don’t have TikTok installed on either my personal or work cell phone. It was on my wife’s phone, which always has auto-updates turned off. She hates updates and never lets them happen. She woke up one morning and TikTok was updated with no way to turn that off. Two of her friends also complained that their apps auto-updated overnight.

https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-new-privacy-policy/

https://piunikaweb.com/2026/01/23/tiktok-privacy-policy-update-january-2026/

https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/social-media/is-tiktok-u-s-broken-or-working-as-intended-3-terrifying-terms-of-service-changes-may-explain-whats-really-going-on

Side note: tomsguide is now horrifically hard to read.

Apple forced an update on iphones that auto-updated TikTok, which now has mandatory reporting of your geolocation (including SIM card and GPS info). This geolocation sharing can’t be turned off in Settings like all other apps. It is greyed out for TikTok.

You think this is all coincidental?