TikTok is very popular at this time and has millions of users from around the world including the kids and adults accessing it. This hyped and popular app is right now in trouble after parents from the US have asked for legal action on it in the matter of children’s privacy. Guardians and parents have come forward claiming that the company behind TikTok is allegedly collecting data from the kids using it. This goes against the privacy laws that are made to keep the child privacy safe from misuse of their data. The class-action suit is filed against the parent company behind Tiktok named ByteDance.
TikTok app was earlier Musically and later merged into Tiktok with the popularity that skyrocketed this year. According to the parents, their kids were under 13 years old when they first started using Musically which is now TikTok. While registering for the app there was no consent or permission of parents required by the app and that seems to be the issue. The lack of verifiable consent from parents while letting underage children use its services goes against COPPA or Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. This is also a very strict act and so TikTok is in trouble for collecting data of children.
COPPA works for the websites that collect data from children that are using it and TikTok has a large number of such kids actively using it. TikTok has been in such legal troubles before too and doesn’t really have a clean record. Earlier the app was also collecting location data and tracking users using the geolocation data. There are other issues with this app as well while people are using fake information to make profiles. Bullying is also happening with some censored videos that surely aren’t good for an app with underage users.