Social-Media
TikTok is being sued for billions for collecting data on children.
According to details provided by Reuters, TikTok, the wildly successful short-form video app, and its Chinese parent, ByteDance, may face a damages lawsuit worth billions of pounds (dollars) in London's High Court over claims that they unlawfully harvested the private data of millions of European children.
On Wednesday, Anne Longfield, the former Children's Commissioner for England and the so-called "litigation pal," or public face, of an anonymous 12-year-old girl leading the class action, said that if the suit is successful, the children involved might obtain thousands of pounds each.
Longfield stated that since May 25, 2018, any child who has used TikTok may have had private personal information.
Longfield claims that since May 25, 2018, private personal information about any child who has used TikTok has been secretly obtained by ByteDance through TikTok for the benefit of unknown third parties.
“Parents and children have a right to know that private information, including phone numbers, physical location, and videos of their children are being illegally collected,” she said, as a website to detail the case goes live.
A TikTok representative said 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.
“We believe the claims lack merit and intend to vigorously defend the action,” the representative said.
The lawsuit demands that the corporation remove all personal information about children and claims that if successful, damages could amount to "billions of pounds."
In the U.S. style, “opt-out” data privacy class actions, which automatically tie a given group into a lawsuit unless individuals opt out, are uncommon.
The case has been placed on hold as the UK Supreme Court considers a bellwether case against Google in which the company is accused of illegally monitoring iPhone users in 2011 and 2012 using third-party cookies.
The case will be heard the next week.
