TikTok Lawsuit: Allegedly Processing Data From Children's Accounts—Is Your Child's Privacy and Data in Danger?

TikTok lawsuit made its way to United Kingdom's court, as the video streaming application was allegedly collecting illegal information on private data and information of children's accounts. The social network platform is now facing a billion-dollar lawsuit which was claimed to be endangering and putting these users at risk.

The Chinese short video sharing platform has been faced with a lot of controversies since its establishment and fame across the world, but this one is a different case as it talks about children. The sensitive claims against TikTok said that it has collected private user data and it includes a handful of children accounts in the process.

While most age restrictions are still observed and seen via the different social media platforms, there are a few of these that have surpassed the limit and can use the platform without parental consent. The generation is inclined to use the different technology available to man, especially the utilization of social media platforms such as TikTok.

TikTok Lawsuit: Children Endangerment via Collecting Private User Data

According to Reuters, a former Children's Commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, has pushed claims against the video-sharing platform of TikTok and ByteDance, Inc., its parent company, regarding children endangerment. The process of endangering children is through the company's alleged illegal data harvest that took sensitive information.

The case was taken to London's High Court and is a multi-billion-pound (dollar) lawsuit which the Chinese social media developer is now facing. The claims against TikTok were pursued by Longfield, along with an anonymous 12-year-old girl that has been using TikTok for some time now, believed to be part of the data collection victims.

The lawsuit claimed that the data collection from children's accounts dates back to May 25, 2018, and these data were sold to unknown third-party clients of ByteDance and TikTok. Moreover, those going against TikTok have claimed that it has violated the UK and European Union's laws about data collection that have allegedly violated the minors.

Is Your Child's Data In Danger? What Does TikTok Have to Say?

Currently, the claims of the prosecutors and plaintiffs of the case are all allegations and have no proven evidence that TikTok is guilty of the crime and charge against them. According to Bloomberg, TikTok denied everything that was blamed unto them, saying that their priority is safety, and are fighting it out in court.

Currently, there is no way of knowing whether a child with a TikTok account is in trouble or subject to the illegal data collection by the alleged party. It was also claimed by the US government that TikTok has been collecting data for China, and selling it for state and third-party purposes.

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Isaiah A.