Tik – Tok – It is a Chinese app. It is a social networking app for video sharing owned by Byte Dance. It allows users to upload 60 seconds of video and watch such videos. It had a wide user base in India, close to 1.3 million people. In 2019, it was banned by India due to concerns that such apps were breaching the privacy of citizens and were a threat to security and privacy of the country.
It was claimed that Tik Tok had access to data on the user’s phone and Tik Tok was stealing data and providing it to other servers outside India. There had been many criminal incidents related to Tik Tok which made the situation further dangerous. Reports had also suggested that Tik Tok had led to cyber bullying and sexual exploitation.
Threat to Children – Thus Tik Tok was a hazard to its various users especially children who were actively participating in this video making fiasco. Tik Tok was found highly unsuitable for children as it has a lot of unsuitable content ranging from sexual to violent content. It contains overtly sexual content, physically dangerous stunts, racist and discriminatory remarks which affect the mental health of the children.
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A class action was filed in federal court of California over illegal biometric data collection. The US Government held a national security review of the Tik Tok and held that it violated children’s privacy. Tik Tok was fined $5.7 million for the same. This was the largest fine imposed in case of violation of child privacy. Tik Tok failed to obtain consent of the adults for collecting the data of kids under 13 which was a requirement of law. They failed to tell how they collected information to the parents and didn’t delete the data on parent’s request. Tik Tok was also ordered to delete this data along with a fine. However, people are still so curious to buy TikTok followers to grow on this platform.
The United States has Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and it was proved that Tik Tok violated this Act by collecting personal information from children. The US Federal Trade Commission discovered that Tik Tok was involved in disturbing practices such as disclosing the location of children. There are various public reports showing that adults tried to contact various children through this app.
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A coalition of 20 children and consumer groups have filed a case against Tik Tok stating that it has again violated the agreement it made with FTC by collecting names, email addresses and other personal information from users below the age of 13 years without parent’s consent. The app had made the information of the children public and the app was also used to message children. Tik Tok had failed to abide by the commitments made by it earlier and was thus liable. Tik Tok continues to flout the law even after being caught red handed and remanded.
In England, a case has been filed against Tik Tok on the ground that it collects data of children users. Former Children Commissioner, Anne Longfield has filed this case on behalf of millions of parents in the United Kingdom and European Economic Area. It is alleged that Tik Tok is collecting and mishandling children’s personal data, thus violating children’s data protection law. Tik Tok is collecting information and passing it to others illegally for financial gain. They are collecting face recognition, access to phone records and exact location which is surely not required for a video sharing app. By taking all this information without parent’s consent has affected 3.5 million children. Tik Tok collects such information for advertisement.
Tik Tok was fined $186 million for mishandling children’s data by the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) in South Korea. KCC acts as a media watchdog in South Korea. It was alleged that Tik Tok collected data of children under 14 years of age illegally without the consent of the parents. Tik Tok violated privacy laws by collecting information about 6000 children. The Chinese firm also transferred this data to others without the consent of the owner which was not informed to the parents.
The European Consumer Organization (BEUC) has filed a case against Tik Tok urging the EU to investigate the contents of the video sharing app. It has been stated that Tik Tok used unfair terms in virtual goods and unfair rights to user content. It has also violated the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by giving access to harmful content to children. Tik Tok has breached the privacy rights of the children. 15 countries have alerted their authorities about Tik Tok violating their consumer protection. Tik Tok has used unfair terms related to copyright and virtual currency.
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There are concerns about the type of content that the children are being exposed to. There have been issues related to data protection, consumer protection, privacy practices and technical data processing. Thus Tik Tok has emerged as a national threat in all countries and this is mainly concerned with violation of privacy, especially children.
