ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Attention parents.

TikTok, one of the hottest social media apps for kids, could be a data privacy risk.

That’s what Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) thinks.

  • Senator Rubio calls for investigation into TikTok
  • TikTok hit with record setting data privacy fine in February 2019
  • TikTok claims user data collected in the U.S.; says China has no access

"Catchy videos. But they are collecting personal data on your teens for #China & they are stealing money through copyright theft," Senator Rubio tweeted.

 

 

 

Is that true?  Is China collecting children's data through TikTok?

Currently, the app is on pace to be the fastest growing social media app on the market.

It has half a billion users worldwide and the majority of them are under the age of 24

Lately, TikTok has been gobbling up news headlines to mixed reviews as well:

That last headline is what set off Sen. Rubio.

Spectrum Bay News 9 even reported about a record-setting fine against TikTok back in February.

 

This QZ headline is more relevant though:

"Is TikTok a Chinese Cambridge Analytica data bomb waiting to explode?" came from New York College Professor David Carroll, who incidentally sued Cambridge Analytica for its data breach.

He got TikTok to answer on data privacy in emails.

"TikTok user data is stored and processed in the U.S...TikTok does not operate in China and the government has no access," said the privacy representative from TikTok to Carroll.

But TikTok also said in the email that there was a different policy before the record-setting fine.

“Data from TikTok users who joined the service before February 2019 may have been processed in China," said the email.

The question is do you trust TikTok when they say the Chinese government has no access to the data they collect?

All the evidence from previous incidents involving other social media companies points to be very careful what you choose to share with an app.