The Ministers of State for Consumer Protection and Privacy, Eva de Bleecker and Matthew Michel, want to better protect children on TikTok. To this end, they are asking the Belgian Data Protection Authority to reconsider its previous position to join an investigation into the Irish Data Protection Authority.
TikTok, along with Instagram, is the most popular social media channel among 12-16 year olds. Numerous complaints and investigations have shown that protecting users, and children in particular, leaves something to be desired in terms of consumer law compliance and data protection.
At the European level, the Irish Data Protection Authority is already investigating how TikTok manages and processes children’s data.
The Belgian Data Protection Authority joined this investigation. Ministers of State De Bleecker and Michel are asking that the data protection authority consider what else can be done at the national level. With this they want to avoid the “bottleneck” risks in Ireland as much as possible. In this way, our data protection authority will be compliant with similar investigations being conducted by the Dutch and Italian authorities.
Children and young people should be aware of what can happen to their data. It can’t be that a big company like Tiktok, with its mainly young customers, hide behind obscurity. Correct and transparent information is a basic consumer right,” said Minister of State for Consumer Protection Eva de Bleecker. “I want our citizens, and our youth in particular, a digital environment with the same level of protection as in the real world. That is why we are directing this question to the Data Protection Authority,” concludes Minister of State for Privacy Matteo Michel.
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