TikTok agreed to pay $ 92 million to settle a legal dispute in the United States. Hundreds of plaintiffs accused the ByteDance subsidiary of gathering their personal data and exchanging it with third parties without their permission, according to a class action lawsuit filed across the Atlantic.
The condition is incredible. If the official request for approval of the settlement reached between the different parties is to be believed, the case will include approximately 89 million TikTok users in the United States, all of whom were reportedly exploited in the handling of their personal data.
Specifically, American users' personal data would have been monitored, processed, and sold to advertisers, in direct contrast with American federal law and the complaint received by the federated state of Illinois, all while manipulating the application's source code, such that fraud could be hidden.
TikTok promises to keep consumer data collection to a bare minimum in the United States.
So why did the American court choose a friendly compromise with TikTok rather than an order than a conviction that would, of course, have been longer? "First and foremost, it compensates TikTok customers, but it also guarantees that TikTok can respect its users' privacy in the future," said a lawyer for the Chinese company.
Of these 21 federal cases, which are the result of a year-long legal battle, many were brought on behalf of minors who alleged, through their parents, that they had been victims of data theft and that TikTok could clearly recognize them.
TikTok preferred to extinguish the fire by checking out and providing guarantees to comply with local laws on privacy and computer fraud, which included requiring written consent from companies in the tech sector. Before collecting personal data from a person, which was not the case in this case. TikTok may also have transmitted information to some businesses, often without permission, such asInformation to such organizations such as Facebook and Google at all times without permission. "The TikTok app's light enjoyment comes at a high expense," lawyers also wrote on the subject for the many plaintiffs.
The concern was therefore extreme with respect to people who had access, from the Middle Kingdom, to the data of American citizens. A topic that, regardless of the president in position, is still as sensitive across the Atlantic.
From now on, TikTok will no longer record biometric (including facial) data from American users and will no longer track their geolocation.