From CNET: TikTok, known for its quirky 15-second videos, has been illegally and secretly harvesting vast amounts of personally identifiable user data and sending it to China, according to a proposed class-action lawsuit filed in California federal court last week.
The lawsuit also accuses the company and its Chinese parent company ByteDance of taking user content such as draft videos without their consent and having "ambiguous" privacy policies. It raises concerns that data gathered by TikTok could be used to identify, profile and track users in the US. The company is benefiting from this alleged activity because it uses this data to sell targeted ads, the lawsuit alleges.
"TikTok's lighthearted fun comes at a heavy cost," according to the lawsuit, which was filed on Friday.
The allegations against the popular short video app are the latest example of the growing security concerns surrounding TikTok, which surpassed 1.5 billion downloads worldwide in November. The US government is also reportedly looking into the app for potential security risks.
Misty Hong, a college student and resident of Palo Alto, California, is suing ByteDance, TikTok and Musical.ly, a lip-sync app that was rebranded as TikTok, for allegedly violating a federal computer fraud law, the California Constitution's right to privacy and other laws.
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