One of the fastest growing social media video Apps, TikTok, is being taken to court over use of Children’s personal data.
The legal challenge comes from former children’s commissioner for England, Angela Longfield, over the way TikTok collects and uses its young users’ personal data.
Millions of Children both in the UK and EU are unaware of ‘giving up’ this information and could be owed thousands of pounds if the challenge is successful.
TikTok, naturally, have denied the claims and will take on the fight.
The alleged charges are that TikTok extract personal data, like phone numbers, location and videos without any transparency or warning to the user or their parents.
TikTok have replied to this ‘: "Privacy and safety are top priorities for TikTok and we have robust policies, processes, and technologies in place to help protect all users, and our teenage users in particular. We believe the claims lack merit and intend to vigorously defend the action."
TikTok has over 800 million users and has been extremely popular during lockdown for people, especially children, to stay connected to their friends and classmates.
Ms Longfield states that while all social media platforms collect personal data, her claims are that TikTok had ‘excessive’ systems in place to collect personal data. She goes on to state that the App, behind all the singing and dancing videos, is just a data collection agency in disguise. She added that parents have a ‘right to know’ what data is being extracted from their child and what it is being used for.
The law firm Scott and Scott are representing the case. They believe that the data information extracted by TikTok is a "a severe breach of UK and EU data protection law".
The fight continues…….