An investigation by Canada’s Privacy Commissioner has found that TikTok’s tools to keep children off of its platform were insufficient, and that the social media site collected sensitive data from young users.
“Our investigation found that the measures that TikTok had in place to keep children off the popular video-sharing platform and to prevent the collection and use of their sensitive personal information for profiling and content targeting purposes were inadequate,” Privacy Commissioner of Canada Philippe Dufresne said during a Sept. 23 press conference.
Dufresne, who announced the findings of the joint investigation by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and its Alberta, Quebec, and B.C. counterparts, said TikTok collects “vast amounts of personal information about its users” including biometric information. It uses that data to target the content and advertisements that users see, but Defresne said this information was not sufficiently used to keep children off the platform….