TikTok Faces Privacy Lawsuit In UK On Behalf of Millions of Children

The suit accuses the popular video app and its parent company ByteDance Ltd. of violating U.K. and European Union data protection laws.

TikTok faces a London lawsuit filed on behalf of millions of children in the U.K. and Europe over privacy concerns. The suit accuses the popular video app and its parent company ByteDance Ltd. of violating U.K. and European Union data protection laws. The suit seeks to stop TikTok from "illegally processing millions of childrens' information" and demands any personal information is deleted, the group behind the lawsuit said in a statement Wednesday. Every child that has used the app since May 2018, regardless of their account status or privacy settings, may have had their private personal information collected for the benefit of unknown third parties, according to the suit filed by Anne Longfield, England's former Children's Commissioner. The case follows increased scrutiny of the app by several EU data watchdogs. Last year, EU data-protection regulators pledged to coordinate potential investigations into the Chinese company, establishing a task force to get a better understanding of "TikTok's processing and practices."