Advocacy group says TikTok violated US Federal Trade Commission consent decree, children's privacy rules
- A group of privacy advocacy organisations says TikTok failed to take down all videos made by children under the age of 13 as it previously agreed to do
- The Chinese-owned short video app paid US$5.7 million last year to settle charges that it illegally collected personal information from children
TikTok spokeswoman Hilary McQuaide said in response to the new complaint that “we take privacy seriously and are committed to helping ensure that TikTok continues to be a safe and entertaining community for our users.”
As part of the consent agreement, the FTC had said that TikTok, then known as Musical.ly, had known that young children used the app and had failed to get parental consent to collect their names, email addresses and other personal information. It paid a fine of US$5.7 million.
But, the privacy advocates said, TikTok failed to delete personal information about users age 12 and younger as it had promised as part of the consent agreement.
“We found that TikTok currently has many regular account holders who are under age 13, and many of them still have videos of themselves that were uploaded as far back as 2016, years prior to the consent decree,” they said in their complaint.