TikTok app on phoneTikTok continues to violate child privacy laws, complaint alleges
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| (Image credit by: Nature) |
A coalition of 20 advocacy groups has accused TikTok of violating US child privacy laws and breaching a settlement agreed in February 2019 with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, allows users to share and consider short videos. it's exploded in popularity among children , having reached quite two billion downloads. TikTok videos frequently feature children dancing, lip-syncing, and reacting to other videos.
In February 2019, TikTok reached a $5.7m settlement with the FTC over collection of private data from children under the age of 13 without their parental consent, violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
As a part of the settlement, TikTok agreed to suits COPPA in future and take down any videos uploaded by users under the age of 13. TikTok subsequently launched a separate a part of its app for younger children (“TikTok for Younger Users”) which it claims introduces additional safety and privacy protections.
Now, a coalition of advocacy groups led by the Campaign for a billboard Free Childhood and therefore the Center for Digital Democracy has filed a complaint, alleging that TikTok did not adhere to COPPA and therefore the terms of the FTC settlement, saying: “More than a year later, with quarantined kids and families flocking to the location in record numbers, TikTok has did not delete personal information previously collected from children and remains collecting kids’ personal information all of sudden to and consent of parents”.
The “TikTok for Younger Users” section of the app fails to stick to COPPA because TikTok still collects data from children which is shared with third parties for advertising purposes, the groups say.
The complaint alleges that TikTok has did not delete children’s personal data, fails to stop children using the most app by lying about their age, and lacks adequate mechanisms for receiving parental consent for data collection or for allowing parents to delete data. It also alleges that TikTok has did not remove children’s accounts on the most app, a number of which have many followers; TikTok had agreed to get rid of all videos made by children under the age of 13 as a part of last year’s FTC settlement.
“Even after being caught red-handed by the FTC, TikTok continues to flout the law,” said Josh Golin, executive of the Campaign for a billboard Free Childhood.
TikTok said during a statement: “We take privacy seriously and are committed to helping make sure that TikTok continues to be a secure and entertaining community for our users.”
Meanwhile, the Dutch data protection agency has announced an investigation into similar issues; the Dutch data protection watchdog will check out whether TikTok provides adequate protections for the privacy of youngsters .
In spite of its popularity, TikTok has come under a stream of criticism for various issues, including its censorship of videos unfavourable to the Communist Party of China, and allegations that it's transferred personally-identifiable data from Americans to servers located in China.
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