The U.K. recorded a steeper second-quarter contraction than its peers, a performance that means it suffered the worst economic hit from the coronavirus in Europe as well as reporting the highest death toll.

The economy is already recovering as restrictions on daily life ease and workers trickle back to factories and offices, recent data show, but Bank of England officials have warned that it could take until the end of 2021 to regain the ground lost during the pandemic.

U.K. gross domestic product shrank 20.4% in the second quarter, equivalent to an annualized rate of 59.8%, the country’s statistics agency said Wednesday. Over the same period, the U.S. and Germany lost around 10% of their output, with Italy losing 12%, France 14% and Spain 19%.

TikTok skirted a privacy safeguard in Google’s Android operating system to collect unique identifiers from millions of mobile devices, data that allows the app to track users online without allowing them to opt out, a Wall Street Journal analysis has found.

The tactic, which experts in mobile-phone security said was concealed through an unusual added layer of encryption, appears to have violated Google policies limiting how apps track people and wasn’t disclosed to TikTok users. TikTok ended the practice in November, the Journal’s testing showed. …

The identifiers collected by TikTok, called MAC addresses, are most commonly used for advertising purposes. The White House has said it is worried that users’ data could be obtained by the Chinese government and used to build detailed dossiers on individuals for blackmail or espionage.