Canadian Privacy Officials Find TikTok’s Child Data Protection Inadequate
Canada’s privacy commissioner has found that TikTok’s efforts to keep children off its platform and protect their personal data have fallen short.
Despite the app’s minimum age requirement of 13, hundreds of thousands of Canadian children continue to use it each year.
The investigation revealed that TikTok collected sensitive personal information from large numbers of children and used it to fuel targeted advertising and content recommendations.
Commissioner Philippe Dufresne warned that such practices expose children to harmful impacts, as the data is leveraged to shape what they see online.
TikTok, while disputing some of the findings, has pledged to introduce new measures to strengthen protections for Canadian users and clarify how children’s data may be used.
This probe adds to the growing global scrutiny over TikTok, from security bans in Europe to debates in the United States about restricting or restructuring its ownership.
At its heart, the case underscores a fundamental principle of children’s rights: under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, every child has the right to privacy and protection from exploitation.
