What’s in this article:
- TikTok just updated its U.S. privacy policy with something that may give some users an assumption of consent for the company to collect biometrics
The newest version of the TikTok’s platform privacy [shouldn’t it be called invasion of privacy?] introduced a new section entitled “Image and Audio Information,” a sub-heading under “Information we collect automatically.”
It warns that: “We may collect biometric identifiers and biometric information as defined under US laws, such as faceprints and voiceprints, from your User Content.”
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However, just announcing you’re collecting that form of data, in general, does not necessarily make it legal, which is why it adds this next sentence: “Where required by law, we will seek any required permissions from you prior to any such collection.”
In reporting on the privacy policy, TechCrunch pointed out that the guarantee of keeping it legal should not reassure most users that they’re safe from having their biometric data collected: “As it stands today, only a handful of U.S. states have biometric privacy laws, including Illinois, Washington, California, Texas, and New York.”
That leaves a full 45 states where there would be no requirement for informed consent on such data collection. TikTok also doesn’t exactly have a track record of respecting privacy and the legal limits that are defined.
Earlier this year, TikTok agreed to pay $92 million to settle, ZDNet reported, in response to 21 class-action lawsuits in California and Illinois that charged it with violating the privacy of teens. The way the money will be distributed could be affected by recent privacy legislation.
ZDNet observed that the parties in Illinois would likely get more than their California counterparts, because it is “the only US state that has laws in place to allow residents to seek compensation when their biometric data is collected or used without consent through the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).”
It may have been worth the cost for TikTok to gain that data illegally, but users do have to ask themselves if they’d consider the benefits of the app worth the risk.