US probes TikTok over children's privacy
The US government is probing allegations that Chinese social media giant TikTok breached children’s privacy rules.
Both the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department are believed to be looking into the claims that TikTok failed to delete videos and personal information about users aged 13 and younger.
A staffer in a Massachusetts tech policy group and another source took part in conference calls with both agencies, Reuters reported. The calls discussed accusations that TikTok had failed to live up to an agreement that was introduced in February 2019.
The probes were launched after the FTC was asked to look into it by the Centre for Digital Democracy, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, and others.
A consent agreement was reached with the FTC around the use of children’s data last year.
A TikTok spokesman told Reuters that the company took “safety seriously for all of our users”. He also said that in the US users under 13 are accommodated with a “limited app experience that introduces additional safety and privacy protections specifically designed for a younger audience”.
The probe follows a heavy hint from US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the government may look to ban Chinese social media apps, including TikTok.
In an interview with Fox News Mr Pompeo said the government had “worked on this issue for a long time” and that banning Chines apps was “something we’re looking at”.
The US government has raised concerns around the storage of data by TikTok and suggested that it may have to provide its data to Beijing - an accusation the social media site vehemently denies.
Owned by ByteDance, a Shenzen-based technology start-up, Chinese video streaming app TikTok has been downloaded over two billion times since its launch in 2016.
