[Gerald]

Parents of dozens of minors across the U.S. have filed lawsuits against Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok, alleging that the video-sharing app collects facial recognition data, location data and data on close contacts from minors, and discreetly sends it to servers in China.

KEY FACTS

Twenty separate suits against TikTok had been filed over the past year in California— where the company’s U.S. headquarters are located—and Illinois, which requires companies to seek written consent from users before collecting the data.

All the lawsuits have now https://assets.documentcloud.org/doc...TikTok-MDL.pdf merged into one and the plaintiffs’ lawyers are asking a federal judge in Illinois to expand the case into a nationwide class action, which would likely allow millions of American users to join in.

TikTok’s lawyers have refuted allegations raised against the company, arguing that the app neither captures any biometric information, including facial recognition data from users, nor does it send any data to China.

In a departure from the company’s public messaging, however, TikTok’s lawyers have argued that the company can transfer data to China, if it so chooses, without breaking any laws.

TikTok has previously stated that data from U.S. users primarily resides on servers in Virginia, with a backup of that data being stored in Singapore, adding that U.S. users’ data is never sent to any servers or authorities in China.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladit.../#4fed26247c3c


The hard fact that data collection is so basic today. Which is also sold to other countries and it also poses a clear safety risk ... I hardly think that "the boys on the hill" has approved this ... but as usual as long as money comes in and the wheels can spin, everyone is satisfied ... sigh.