China’s TikTok Sued by U.S. College Student Over Data Use
- Plaintiff alleges ByteDance siphoned up personal information
- The world’s largest startup is under fire in the U.S.
Photographer: Thomas Trutschel/Photothek/Getty Images
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A California college student has sued TikTok, the viral video service run by social media giant ByteDance Inc., for secretly funneling her personal information to China while using her videos to create an online profile for targeted ads.
The lawsuit, filed last week in the Northern District of California by full-time university student Misty Hong, alleges TikTok harvested her videos, gathered personally identifiable info, then transferred that information to servers in ByteDance’s home country. TikTok did so without her consent, her lawyers said in a filing that didn’t provide evidence to back up the allegations.