It was announced on Tuesday that the video-sharing app TikTok had agreed to suspend the controversial privacy policy update that would have allowed the company's users' activity on the social video platform to be used to serve targeted advertisements.
After the Garante per la Protezione dei Dati Personali, Italy's data protection authority issued a warning to the company about the change, TechCrunch reported the reversal.
"The personal data stored in users' devices may not be used to profile those users and send personalized ads without their explicit consent," the Garante stated.
It was a formal warning in response to a privacy policy revision that stated that the company had previously asked users' "consent" to their on-TikTak and off-TikTak activity to serve personalized ads and that it intends to stop asking users for their permission to profile and process personal data.
In a notice announcing the changes, ByteDance-owned TikTok stated that it will use "legitimate interests" as its legal basis for using on-TikTok activity to personalize the ads of users who are 18 or older.
Users in the European Economic Area (EEA), the United Kingdom, and Switzerland will benefit from the new personalized advertising settings.
An investigation by the Garante found that the proposed policy changes were incompatible with Italy's personal data protection law and the EU ePrivacy Directive, which mandates user consent before processing personal information such as cookies and email marketing.
'The storage of information, or access to information already stored, in the terminal equipment of a subscriber or user' is explicitly stated in both legal instruments,' the data watchdog noted.
In addition, "processing data on the basis of its 'legitimate interest' would be in conflict with the current regulatory framework, at least with regard to the information stored in users' devices, and would involve all the relevant consequences, including corrective measures and fines," the document stated.
The Garante's intervention came less than two weeks after it was criticized in the United States over concerns that TikTok engineers in China had accessed U.S. users' data, prompting the company to establish new guardrails.
Post a Comment
Your suggestions and comments are welcome