Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, confirms that TikTok is under multiple investigations. The motives? The treatment that the social network applies to user data; specifically for the transfer of information from European users to China and advertising directed at minors. the ultimate goal is to ensure that TikTok works according to the requirements of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).
“TikTok’s data practices, including with respect to international data transfers, are the subject of several ongoing proceedingsUrsula von der Leyen comments in a letter shared by Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr.
“This includes an investigation of the [Comisión de Protección de Datos] Irish law on TikTok’s compliance with various GDPR requirements, including with regard to data transfers to China and processing of data from minors, and litigation before Dutch courts (in particular in relation to targeted advertising with regarding minors and data transfers to China).
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission
In this letter, Von der Leyen also commented on the concerns of different media about the possibility that Chinese authorities could access the TikTok data of EU citizens. It is not the first time that the European authorities have put an eye on TikTok. In fact, at the beginning of this year, a complaint accused the app of infringing the rules of the aforementioned territory in terms of consumer rules.
TikTok under investigation beyond the European Union
The European Union is not the only one that has TikTok in its sights. On the other side of the Atlantic, the social network faced a report of Forbes where it was made sure that ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, could use the app’s location data to monitor the location of US citizens.
TikTok came to its own defense soon after, claiming that ByteDance had no intention of tracking the location of US-based users through the app. ForbesFor his part, he remained true to his wordsassuring that “The fact of not using GPS does not mean that [el equipo de ByteDance] can’t use that location [aproximada] to keep an eye on certain people.
The concerns regarding TikTok are not just part of a fight to keep users’ private data safe. In addition, there is a huge problem of trends on the social network, which leads to the disappearance of important drugs for a certain demographic for cosmetic reasons. Also, there are plenty of private accounts that share child abuse material. without any repercussions from the app.
Brendan Carr, the FCC’s top Republican commissioner, recently commented that TikTok should be banned from the United States. In fact, urged Apple and Google to remove the social network from their respective app stores.