TikTok, the popular social media app that let users share short videos, has been officially removed from Googleâs Play Store and Appleâs App Store. The app was banned by the Ministry of Information and Technology Monday night citing national security reasons. The apps were found to be violating the privacy of users and their data was being stored outside the county. The Indian Government ordered both Google and Apple to remove the app listing from their respective stores and does not show any result when searching for the application. 

© MensXP

The Ministry has also ordered ISPs and Telecom providers to enforce the ban as the application still works on phones that had it installed previously. 

TikTok was not the only application to get banned by the Indian Government as 58 other apps and games were also targeted. The Government said in a statement, âinvoking its power under section 69A of the Information Technology Act read with the relevant provisions of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking of Access of Information by Public) Rules 2009 and in view of the emergent nature of threats has decided to block 59 apps since in view of the information available they are engaged in activities which are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the state and public order.â

© Unsplash/ Konkarampelas

Having said that, not all applications that were banned have been removed from the digital app stores as one can still download Cam Scanner, ShareIt, Mobile Legends and other banned apps at the moment of writing this story. 

iOS 14 beta has a banner to confirm when you paste from another device (eg copy on a Mac and paste on iPhone)

Seems to be bugging out and showing with every keystroke in TikTok pic.twitter.com/aFKNfZnpyb

TikTok was also caught spying on millions of its users on iPhone that was revealed thanks to a new feature on iOS 14. It was discovered TikTok was spying on its userâs clipboard content or in other words when someone would copy the text on their phone. The app would be able to read everything a user would copy which also includes sensitive information such as passwords, work documents, sensitive emails and financial information. 

View the full article