TikTok has sued The World for collecting personal data from millions of children in the UK. DW

A former commissioner for children in England filed a lawsuit on Wednesday (04/21/2021) against the video platform Tickcock accusing them of illegally collecting personal data from millions of children in the UK and Europe.

Anne Longfield expected full billions of pounds on Ticktock and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, as compensation on behalf of 16-year-olds in the European Union and 13 in the UK. Some 3.5 million minors have ties in the UK, according to him.

Longfield estimates that all children who have used TickTock since the beginning of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) from May 2018, whether they have an account or not, may be affected by this data collection. This personal information includes phone numbers, videos, pictures, connection locations, or even biometric data, such as facial recognition.

“Behind the fun songs, the challenges or playback of the dance, is something more malicious,” Longfield said.

“We want Tiktok to end its questionable data collection practices, and we demand that it erase all private information illegally received when children use the app,” he said.

The complaint filed by the Scott + Scott law firm also claims that Tiktok collects data without any notice, without transparency and without consent, without any law requirement.

Tikotok responded to the allegations

According to the plaintiff, Ticketcock, which has 800 million users worldwide, is intentionally “opaque” about its data usage, “incredibly valuable” to the company, with its Cayman Islands-registered parent ByTdance in revenue by 2020 Should generate revenue of approximately $ 30,000 million. , Two-thirds comes from advertising.

A Tiktok spokesperson responded to the allegations, saying the complaint was “baseless” and that the company “intends to defend itself.”

“Privacy and security are top priorities for Tiktok and we have strong practices and technologies to protect all users and especially teenagers,” the representative said.

In February, 2019, a $ 5.7 million fine was levied in the United States on the video platform TikTok for illegally collecting personal data of children under 13, including their names, emails, and postal addresses.

JU (afp, the guardian.com, news.sky.com, bbc.com)