Netherlands Fines TikTok €750,000 Over Privacy Violation.
Data protection authorities in the Netherlands fined popular China-tied social media service TikTok €750,000 on Thursday on the grounds that TikTok violated the privacy of young Dutch children.
The Netherlands’ Data Protection Authority (DPA) specifically cited the fact that the app installation information, including the privacy statement, for TikTok was in English, making is difficult for young Dutch children to assess the information.
“By not offering their privacy statement in Dutch, TikTok failed to provide an adequate explanation of how the app collects, processes and uses personal data,” the DPA said in a statement.
“This is an infringement of privacy legislation, which is based on the principle that people must always be given a clear idea of what is being done with their personal data.”
The DPA began to investigate TikTok, which has 3.5 million Dutch users, last year. TikTok has objected to the €750,000 fine and issued a statement to AFP in which it “said its privacy policy and a shorter and more accessible summary for younger users, have been available in Dutch since July 2020.” TIkTok further said that the DPA has accepted the latter summary as “resolving the matter.”
The National Pulse has previously reported that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, whose former CEO pledged “devotion” to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has covert access to TikTok’s user data.
TikTok has recently faced a series of cases similar to the DPA’s globally.
“The EU in May said TikTok must address concerns of aggressive advertising methods targeting children in a case launched by consumer authorities in several member states. . .the EU claim came a month after Britain accused the video-sharing app of illegally collecting personal data from millions of children in Europe. The case by the EU executive came after a signal in February by the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) about TikTok’s alleged breaches of EU consumer rights.”
