TikTok and its parent company ByteDance is facing a data claim worth £1 billion over allegations that it illegally collected the personal information of children whilst they used its app. The claim has been filed at the High Court in England and Wales. The claimants have stated the defendants ‘deliberately violated United Kingdom and European Union children’s data protection law’.
The claim has been lodged by Anne Longfield (former Children’s Commissioner for England) and the law firm Scott + Scott on the behalf of the parents and children, to stop TikTok illegally processing millions of children’s data and they have demanded the company deletes all their children’s data.
TikTok and ByteDance are accused of severely breaching the UK Data Protection Act and EU General Data Protection Regulations. It is claimed the app has taken children’s data without sufficient warning, transparency, or the legally required consent.
The claim states that every child who has used TikTok since 25 May 2018 may have had their personal data illegally collected, regardless of whether they have a TikTok account or what their privacy settings are.
The personal information collected allegedly includes, videos, telephone numbers, exact locations, pictures, and biometric/facial recognition data.
