TikTok collected children’s personal data without a valid need or interest, Canadian regulators have found after a 2.5-year probe. In a joint investigation, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and three provincial privacy watchdogs examined whether the China-based platform lawfully used personal information and obtained meaningful consent, especially for targeted advertising and content personalisation. The offices deemed TikTok’s practices inappropriate and issued recommendations to better protect children.
Which offices led this investigation?
The TikTok platform has a high level of usership, with 14 million active monthly Canadian users in November 2024, as reported by TikTok to the Offices
The joint investigation was led by the following offices:
- Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC)
- Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia (OIPC BC),
- Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta (OIPC AB)
- Quebec’s Access to Information Commission (CAI) / Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec (CAI)
This report examined TikTok based on the following laws of the respective regions:
- Canada: Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA)
- Quebec: Act Respecting the Protection of Personal Information in the Private Sector
- British Columbia: Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA BC)
- Alberta: Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA AB)
TikTok provided the Offices with a 31-page document listing all the data elements it collects about users.
Why Were TikTok’s Age-Gating Mechanisms Insufficient?
According to TikTok’s terms of use, users under the age of 13 are prohibited from using the platform. However, in Quebec, the minimum age is 14 years.
TikTok relied only on a voluntary age-entry mechanism, requiring users to enter their age manually without verification. While TikTok also claimed to detect underage children through the language they used on the platform and allowed account removal when reported, the Offices found these mechanisms ineffective.
The regulators noted that TikTok had “sophisticated analytics tools” to estimate user age for business purposes but failed to deploy similar tools to prevent underage use. As a result, large amounts of personal and sensitive information from Canadian children were collected and processed.
“Recognising the significant gaps that we observed in TikTok’s underage user detection mechanisms, we found it likely that many more children continued to use the platform, undetected, and therefore subjected to profiling and targeting by TikTok,” the report stated.
Since children’s data was not processed for “appropriate purposes,” the consent TikTok obtained during sign-up could not be considered valid or meaningful.
What Data Did TikTok Collect, and Why Is It a Concern?
The report noted that TikTok may have collected…
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