ByteDance, the operator of video-sharing app Tik Tok, popular with teenagers agreed to pay $5.7 million to settle federal allegations it illegally collected personal information from children .
The Federal Trade Commission said the Wednesday penalty against lip-syncing app TikTok, is the largest ever obtained in a children's privacy case.
The FTC said the app violated the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which requires kid-oriented websites to get parents' consent before collecting personal information from children under 13.
The app changed its practices in 2017 to officially ban kids under 13 from joining, but it wasn't hard to find children as young as 8 or 9 sharing short videos of themselves on the platform.
Tik Tok has quietly become a roaring giant, with over 54 million monthly active users (MAUs) already operating out of a growing market like India and its development hasn’t gone unnoticed.
Which is why, it is critical to notice Tik Tok and its terms of conditions, with regards to data collection from its users. In the US, UK and parts of Europe, the platform has clearly mentioned its rules and regulations and how user protection, including kids are part of the policies.
Tik Tok’s rampant growth in India, includes kids as well, putting them in danger of similar wrongdoings. But scroll down to read its terms for the country, and this is where concerns of cyber experts and parents are likely to go up a notch.
Not only does India miss out on having structured user data protection laws, they don’t even cater to needs and protection of children on such platforms.
It’s easy for Tik Tok to say that it verifies age and gender of a user signing up on its app but nobody’s surprised to hear that even 8 to 9 year olds are easily able to access to create content.
Similar claims have been made previously by other social networking platforms, like Facebook itself, but we’ve seen millions of under-age users on these platforms, who’re let’s be honest, not Tik Tok’s problem, legally at least.
Merely having an email ID to report to is not Tik Tok’s sole responsibility. In addition to the content cleansing, they also have to add rigid signing up process, to keep the kids away from such platforms.
Facebook tried pacifying people with a new Messenger for Kids app, but that made the situation worse for the company. Tik Tok has a similar plan in mind, a whole new app for kids, but legal and cyber experts aren’t too keen for these companies to go anywhere near underage kids.
Back in India, similar concerns were mentioned in a letter addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this month by the Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM). Its co-convener Ashwani Mahajan said that TikTok is known for sharing the details of children and being an open ground for child pornography and possibly anti-national activities.
Following the allegations by SJM, ByteDance, in an earlier statement shared with IANS said that TikTok was committed to maintaining a safe and positive in-app environment for its users in India.
But going by terms and conditions, specifically framed for India, it has no mention about kids safety. Having said that, it’s easy to ban something in a split second, and there have been similar clamours to ban popular mobile game PUBG as well but there’s got be a better way out.
With all these platforms and incidents in the spotlight, it’s high time India’s user data protection laws are not only brought on board but drafted to be relevant in this day and age as well.
Because, without strong laws and practices in place, companies like ByteDance and even Facebook to some extent will never be fined.
(With inputs from AP and IANS)
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