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Major short-form video social media platform TikTok has been collecting the data of Canadian children, according to findings made by Canada’s Privacy Commission.
As discovered during a joint investigation by the Canadian Federal Privacy Commissioner, alongside the privacy authorities in Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec, TikTok has been collecting the data of Canadians under 13 years of age as part of its privacy practices.
As children under 13 years of age (or 14 in Quebec) are prohibited from TikTok, the data was collected as part of TikTok’s age-verification measures.
However, the Privacy Commission has determined that TikTok’s age-verification measures were “largely ineffective”, adding that “TikTok’s inadequate age-assurance measures” resulted in the company collecting “the personal information of a large number of Canadian children, including information that the offices consider to be sensitive”.
The commission added that the data was also being collected to better target advertisements and content.
“The investigation uncovered that TikTok removes approximately 500,000 underage users from the platform each year. Where these children were engaging with the platform before being removed, TikTok was already collecting, inferring and using information about them to serve them targeted ads and recommend tailored content to them,” it said.
The data reportedly included biometric and location data, which British Columbia’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, Michael Harvey, said was used to “create elaborate inferences about who the users were, about things like what their spending power was and use that, to then decide what content, including advertising, to feed back to them.
“Obviously, that’s super sensitive when it comes to children and youth. But we don’t think that even adults had a reasonable expectation that this was happening,” Harvey added.
The Federal Privacy Commission found that TikTok failed to explain the data it collected and biometric data usage in the context of video, image and audio analysis for age assurance.
The report also found that TikTok may also collect other sensitive data, including political opinions, sexual orientation, gender identity, and health.
“We noted with concern during a demonstration of TikTok’s advertising portal, the potential for advertisers to target users based on their transgender status,” the report said.
“TikTok claimed that this was not supposed to be possible but was unable to explain how or why this option had been available.”
In response to the report, TikTok has reportedly agreed to improve its age verification measures, will “effectively stop” allowing advertisers to target under-18s based on language and location, and will provide notices on its data collection.
“While we disagree with some of the findings, we remain committed to maintaining strong transparency and privacy practices,” said TikTok spokesperson Danielle Morgan.
Canadian privacy watchdogs intend to follow up to ensure the age verification measures are improved.
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