Former England Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield, has filed a claim on behalf of millions of children in the UK and EU. against popular social media video sharing platform, Tic Tok.
The claim is based on how children’s data is being collected and subsequently used.
Children can benefit thousands of pounds if the claim is successful.
Lawyers will argue that without sufficient warning, personal information such as phone numbers, location, biometric data, videos etc., are collected without parental consent and transparency, without knowledge of the purpose for which the information will be used.
In a media interview, Ms Longfield indicated that Tic Toc has excessive data collection policies which makes it a data collection platform masked as a social network and has deliberately and successfully deceived parents.
A representative from the law firm involved with the claim states, “the matter represents a severe breach of UK and EU data protection law”.
“TikTok and ByteDance’s advertising revenue is built on the personal information of its users, including children. Profiting from this information without fulfilling its legal obligations, and its moral duty to protect children online, is unacceptable.”
Tic Tok responded to the claim by saying: : “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.”