World Popular video sharing app TikTok has agreed to pay $5.7 million to settle allegations which illegally collected personal information from children under the age of 13, such as names, email addresses and their location.
US Federal Trade Commission said in a statement on wednesday that the TikTok fine is a record for a child privacy case.
Popular TikTok, which belongs to $75 billion startup ByteDance, has more than half a billion users worldwide, giving it an international edge over other Chinese-owned social media platforms, which have struggled to expand outside their home market.US fine relates to Musical.ly, a video-sharing app Bytedance bought in 2017 and merged with TikTok last August.
As per investigation on Musical.ly had "uncovered disturbing practices, including collecting and exposing the location" of young children. Despite receiving thousands of complaints from parents, the company failed to comply with requests to delete information about underage children and held onto it longer than necessary, as per source.
Company on Wednesday introduced a "separate app experience" for younger US users in which they "cannot do things like share their videos on TikTok, comment on others' videos, message with users, or maintain a profile or followers."
App which launched in 2014, Musical.ly let users upload short videos of themselves lipsyncing to popular songs. For registering the app, people had to give an email address, phone number, username, first and last name, short bio and profile picture.
Collection of that personal information provided more than enough evidence for Musical.ly to see it was violating the US Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.
Popular Musical.ly, which had more than 65 million registered users in the United States before it merged with TikTok, received thousands of complaints from parents saying their underage children had created an account without their knowledge. COPPA requires internet companies to obtain "verifiable parental consent" before collecting, using or disclosing personal information from children.
Earlier Disney (DIS) subsidiary Playdom was fined $3 million in 2011 for collecting and displaying children's information in multiplayer online games.
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