Monday, January 26, 2026-TikTok is at the center of an urgent privacy firestorm after an updated U.S. privacy policy triggered widespread user panic over language suggesting the app could collect highly sensitive personal details including immigration status alongside things like sexual orientation, race, and gender identity.
This clause showed up in an in‑app notification tied to TikTok’s recent shift to majority U.S. ownership, and users took to social networks with screenshots, warnings, and calls to delete the app outright. Some even claim the platform is now actively tracking immigration status and other identity markers, fueling viral backlash and migrations to alternative apps.
The surge in alarm stems largely from misunderstanding the wording, even though the specific language about collecting “citizenship or immigration status” isn’t actually new it has been part of TikTok’s legal disclosures for months and is largely there to satisfy stringent state privacy laws like California’s CCPA/CPRA. Under these laws, companies must explicitly list any sensitive categories they might process, even if that processing only happens when users voluntarily disclose such details in posts, survey responses, comments, or content metadata.
Despite legal compliance, the timing could not be more explosive. With ongoing U.S. immigration debates and growing distrust around digital privacy, many users are not waiting for nuance they’re hitting uninstall. Some Reddit threads and social posts show users reporting account deletions and sharing grievances about the new terms, believing they now expose deeply personal data to corporate or government access. For creators and everyday users alike, this controversy has become a moment of reckoning on privacy expectations and data control in social media apps.
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