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British Tween Takes On TikTok
Class Action Over Data Harvesting
An anonymous 12-year-old girl’s class-action lawsuit against TikTok in the UK could result in the Chinese company paying billions of pounds worth of damages. The suit alleges that ByteDance (owner of TikTok) illegally harvested the private data of millions of kids in Europe. If the suit succeeds, kids could get thousands of pounds each.
I sure hope my kid is one of them. She certainly has earned it, spending countless hours boogying before a tiny screen instead of studying or playing a sport or an instrument or reading.
The allegation is that information including videos, phone numbers, and kids’ locations, were allegedly collected, and then passed onto unknown third parties.
A TikTok representative disputes the claim, saying its policies and technologies protect users, particularly kids.
The accusations are nothing new. Many countries, including the US, have opened investigations into the app’s data collection practices. TikTok has also been accused of actively preventing users from knowing what it knows.
Its practices aren’t dampening enthusiasm for the app. In Europe alone, TikTok has more than 100 million users, with growth surging amid COVID-19 lockdowns and kids in bedrooms “studying”.
