In recent weeks the tech giants have come under increased scrutiny for their procedure of capturing the interest of children and using the data on their viewing with the sole aim to maximise profits for the platform. In this recent Financial Times article the periodical documents how the data commissioner in Ireland has started investigating TikTok over its usage of data from children under the age of 18, and their supposed transfer of this user information to China. The owner of TikTok, ByteDance, could be fined up to 4% of global revenues – amounting to some 20m € – for this breach of GDPR rules. Ironically the company is just in the process of opening a European HQ in Dublin. This current action is in addition to other court cases against the company for similar collection of personal data in the UK and other parts of Europe, amounting to billions of pounds in claims. This comes after the company was fined $5.7m for collecting children´s data illegally in the US by the Federal Trade Commission. The bottom line is that the tide is turning against companies that either blatantly or inadvertently do not explain how the app is collecting data, how it processes this and what it does with it. Caveat emptor.
#GDPR #TikTok
https://www.ft.com/content/31da34b7-5610-43a9-b9ee-78ef166ccd5c