Children’s Privacy Advocates Urge Potential TikTok Purchasers to Boost Privacy for Young Users

Children’s privacy advocates are urging prospective TikTok buyers to increase protections for young TikTok users.

Given the app’s history with breaches, the Center for Digital Democracy and the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood sent joint letters to Microsoft, Oracle and Walmart, urging the companies to increase privacy protections for users younger than 13.

In their letter, the advocacy groups call for the company that ultimately purchases TikTok’s U.S. operations to immediately take steps to bring the app in line with privacy law, specifically the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

“It is urgent that TikTok be brought into COPPA compliance because the service has so many child users,” the letter says.

The advocacy groups cite a recent report that revealed TikTok had internally classified over a third of U.S. TikTok users as being 14 or younger; the number rises to 47% using that formulation among daily TikTok users.

According to the letter, TikTok’s age-classification system “estimates demographics in the aggregate” and assigns each user an age range.

“This means that TikTok has actual knowledge that millions of its users are under fourteen, including those that must be protected under COPPA,” the letter says. 

Yet in spite of the app’s popularity among children, “TikTok has a track record of openly flouting COPPA.”

The letter says TikTok entered into a consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and paid a then-record $5.7 million fine for COPPA violations, including the illegal collection of personal information of children under 13.

However, despite the settlement, TikTok failed to obey the law, the advocates’ letter says.

The Center for Digital Democracy and the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, along with 18 other child advocacy, privacy and consumer groups, filed an FTC complaint in May 2020 that detailed the ways TikTok had filed to complied with the terms of the decree and continued to violate COPPA.

According to the groups, TikTok failed to delete the personal information of children under 13 that it obtained prior to the settlement. They say the app also failed to provide direct notice to parents of TikTok users and failed to obtain their permission before collecting children’s information, and failed to give parents the right to review or delete children’s personal information that had been collected by TikTok.

When someone younger than 13 tries to register for a TikTok account using their actual birthdate, they are signed up for a “younger users” account that has limited functionality, including no ability to share videos, according to the letter. However, children can bypass these restrictions by signing up again using a fake birthdate.

“In other words, TikTok has illegally obtained data from a very large number of its users and they shouldn’t be on TikTok,” the letter says. “These privacy violations can have serious consequences for children.” 

By ignoring the fact that millions of young children are TikTok users, the app puts them “at risk for sexual predation,” the advocates say, adding news media and law enforcement have documented many cases of “inappropriate adult-to-child contact” through the app.

The children are also exposed to “manipulative data-driven marketing” the groups say COPPA privacy law was specifically intended to prevent. 

“TikTok continues to look the other way when it comes to children’s privacy.”

TikTok has been at the center of a number of class action lawsuits centering on biometric data privacy.

The plaintiffs involved in all the class action lawsuits accuse TikTok of scanning, retaining and disseminating users’ biometric information, violating Illinois privacy law.

The cases were consolidated last month into a multidistrict litigation.

TikTok itself has launched a lawsuit against the Trump administration in an effort to block a ban of the app in the name of national security.

TikTok alleges President Donald Trump’s executive order banning the app violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

In their letter, the child privacy advocate groups ask that, at a minimum, the company that ultimately purchases TikTok immediately stop processing all data from users flagged as or believed to be under 13; review all those users in terms of age status; and delete any accounts the company cannot “affirmatively demonstrate” belong users 13 or older. 

They also urge that the company “put all the resources that you have at your disposal” to ensure anyone younger than 13 can only join TikTok in a COPPA-compliant manner.

In the letter, the advocacy groups request that the companies develop “a model youth data protection regime that promotes the best interests of young people.” 

“We urge you to take critical steps towards creating an online environment for children and teens that is safe, fair, free of commercial exploitation, racially non-discriminatory, equitable, and that promotes the healthy development of children and teens,” the letter says. “We would appreciate the opportunity to engage in a dialogue with you on these important safeguards.

Do you think the company that ultimately buys TikTok’s U.S. operations should shore up privacy protections for young children? Let us know what you think in the comments.

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