Portuguese NGO sues TikTok. A Portugal-based European consumer protection group has sued short-video app TikTok for say allowing children aged under 13 to sign up for an account without parental permission and failing to use measures to protect them.
The lawsuit came a day later Britain’s data watchdog said it had fined TikTok 12.7 million pounds ($15.81 million) for breaching data protection law, view by using the personal data of children without parental consent.
Amid increasing security concerns that China could use the Beijing-based company, owned by ByteDance Ltd, to affect users’ data, Australia, the United States, France, and other Western countries have also recently banned TikTok from government devices.
“TikTok profits from children under the age of 13, taking advantage of their particular vulnerability,” the non-profit group Ius Omnibus said in a message, asking a Lisbon court to “put an end to the unlawful conduct” and order the financial defense of those affected.
TikTok did not directly respond to a request for comment, but told the Portuguese newspaper Public in a message that protecting its users and their data was of “utmost importance”.
Ius Omnibus claims TikTok ends up assembling and processing children’s personal data in breach of Portugal’s constitution, the European Union’s general data security rule, and the unfair commercial practices law.
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Despite TikTok’s age limit, it “does not implement mechanisms to prevent registration” by users aged below 13, the group said.
In an apart lawsuit, it demands users older than 13 are also victims of “misleading business practices” and that convinced personal data is used without their full permission.
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Ius Omnibus said the condition discloses the children to “dangers to their moral, psychological and physical integrity and to their safety and health, as well as to the intimacy of their private and family life”.