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TikTok, one of the world’s most popular video apps, has been hit with a class action lawsuit led by former children’s commissioner for England Anne Longfield for allegations of data harvesting.
The class action could involve as many as 3.5 million children, reports Shropshire Star.
Longfield says that the platform, owned by ByteDance, has unlawfully collected children’s data since May 2018, when the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was introduced.
The class action alleges that the company violated European and UK data laws by processing the data without adequate security measures, transparency, or consent, and it says that the company could face billions of dollars in damages.
Although TikTok has its data collection policies listed on its website, Longfield told the Shropshire Star that the company’s practices were “shady” and it was “deliberately opaque” about sharing who had access to the data it collected.
“In terms of what they take there are addresses, names, date of birth information, their likes, their interests, who they follow, their habits – all of these – the profiling stuff, but also the exact geolocation, that is very much outside what would be deemed appropriate,” she said. “You shouldn’t be doing that when it’s kids.”
She said the company made billions of dollars in advertising revenue based on users’ personal information.
A TikTok representative said that privacy and safety were the company’s top priorities and that it had robust policies, processes and technologies in place to help protect all users, especially teenage users, reports Al Jazeera.
“We believe the claims lack merit and intend to vigorously defend the action,” the representative said.
The High Court ruled in December that Longfield could lead the case against TikTok on behalf of an anonymous 12-year-old girl. The recent class action lawsuit was filed in London’s High Court.
Longfield told the Shropshire Star that she hoped the class action lawsuit would be a powerful test case that would serve as a wake-up call to other social media platforms.
“I’d like to see them acknowledge the problem, stop collecting the illegal data, delete the illegal data they have and put safeguards in place, so they can demonstrate that they’re acting responsibly,” she said.
Those who believe they may be part of the Class are encouraged to register on a website that has been established as a resource for consumers. Those who register can get updates on the case, notifications about joining the Class, and more.
In March, TikTok had to pay $92 million to users in the United States in a class action settlement where users claimed that the company illegally collected private and personally identifiable data from 92 million United States users, some as young as six years old, and sold the data to advertisers.
The lawsuit also claimed TikTok and its parent company ByteDance broke federal laws, including privacy and computer fraud and abuse statutes. TikTok has denied any privacy violations.
Do you or your child use TikTok? Are you concerned about what the company does with your data? Let us know in the comments section!
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