The proposed lawsuit follows a privacy watchdog investigation that found TikTok was collecting information from children.
TikTok is facing a class-action lawsuit alleging the social media app failed to disclose the scale or scope of personal information it collected from Canadian users, nor how that data was used to sell targeted advertising.
The proposed lawsuit claims that TikTok's privacy policy does not disclose to users that “TikTok aggregated and categorized the personal information it collected about them to create detailed profiles.”
The lawsuit was filed in the Supreme Court of British Columbia on November 14 on behalf of a British Columbia resident and TikTok users across Canada. He names parent company ByteDance as defendants, as well as TikTok and the Canadian division of TikTok. This also suggests a proposed subclass of victims: children. None of the allegations in the lawsuit have yet been proven in court, and the lawsuit has not yet been certified.
Earlier this fall, provincial and federal privacy watchdogs published a report It found that TikTok had taken “inadequate measures” to keep children off its platform, resulting in the collection of personal and potentially sensitive information from a “large number” of Canadian children.
TikTok has been available in Canadian app stores since 2017 and serves more than 14 million monthly active users in the country. However, until this year, it did not have a separate Canadian privacy policy and previously relied on a group policy specific to “other regions.”
“Neither version of the privacy policy disclosed to users that TikTok aggregated and categorized the personal information it collected about them to create detailed profiles,” the lawsuit alleges. “They also failed to disclose that TikTok's goal in creating these profiles was to encourage users to spend more and more time on the platform and to be able to sell advertising targeted to those users while they were on the platform.”
TikTok saved data from deleted children's accounts
Users under 13 are prohibited from using the TikTok platform, and TikTok has said it removes about 500,000 accounts belonging to children each year. However, privacy commissioners found that TikTok retained information collected from these children's accounts even after their profiles were deleted.
In response to concerns from privacy commissioners, TikTok has committed to implementing new models to detect underage users. It also promises to clearly outline its policies regarding how it stores, stores and uses user data.
However, the lawsuit argues that these actions are not an adequate response to any harm caused by TikTok's alleged previous collection of user data without informed consent. He is also asking that TikTok be forced to seize any profits it makes from using the data.
Last year TikTok was ordered collapse its Canadian business by an unspecified date. As of this writing, its app remains available in the country. The company said it contributed last year $2.3 billion GDP contribution to the Canadian economy through its own operations, as well as content creators and small businesses promoting their work through the platform.
BetaKit has reached out to law firm Charney Lawyers, as well as ByteDance and TikTok for comment.
Image courtesy of Flickr. Photo by the author Sun of Feyissa.
