TikTok Collection of Information Practices Class Action

TikTok, Inc. (formerly known as Musical.ly, Inc.) offers the enormously popular TikTok app, with more than 100 million monthly active users in the US and 1.5 billion worldwide. But the complaint for this class action brings suit against TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, Inc., alleging that the companies use an in-app browser to intercept users’ communications without their knowledge or consent, in violation of the Federal Wiretap Act.

The class for this action is all natural persons in the US who used TikTok’s in-app browser to visit websites outside the app.

The TikTok app allows users to make and edit videos, post them for others to see, comment on others’ videos, and communicate with each other. It has been downloaded throughout the world two billion times.

The complaint alleges, “TikTok’s financial success is due in large part to its ability to obtain and utilize consumers’ personal financial information to create targeted advertising that it runs through the TikTok app. Thus, this targeted advertising relies upon TikTok’s knowledge of each of its [users’] personal preferences.” It collects this information, the complaint alleges, via “highly invasive and secretive practices[.]”

Although users normally access TikTok through their preferred browsers, the complaint alleges that, while they are using TikTok, when they click a link for another website, that other website opens not in their own browser but in an internal TikTok browser.

Why is this a problem? The complaint alleges, “TikTok’s in-app browser was specifically designed to insert JavaScript code into any third-party website that users access while using the in-app browser. The inserted JavaScript code, in turn, intercepts, records, and copies all Website Communications made by the user while interacting with the third-party website.”

For example, if a user buys something at the other website, the complaint says, the TikTok browser records the person’s name, address, date of birth, item purchased, and credit card information. The complaint alleges, “Neither the TikTok user nor the third-party website which the user visited consents to the insertion of this JavaScript code.”

In 2019, two senators sent a letter to the Acting Director of National Intelligence discussing the national security implications of the app and the possibility that TikTok may share information with the Chinese government. The complaint quotes it as saying, “Security experts have voiced concerns that China’s vague patchwork of intelligence, national security, and cybersecurity laws compel Chinese companies to support and cooperate with intelligence work controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.”

This is not the first time the company’s data collection practices have been called into question. In 2019, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a lawsuit against Musical.ly, claiming it had violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting and using data from children under thirteen without notice to or consent from guardians. Musical.ly had to pay a fine and destroy data.

In 2020, the complaint alleges, the FTC again took an interest in TikTok and has asked it to provide information about its information collection and use.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Privacy
Tags: Improper Collection of Information, Intercepting Electronic Communications, Your Privacy, wiretapping