Canadian privacy watchdogs call for TikTok to enhance protection for children on platform

Key Points

• Canadian privacy authorities have deemed TikTok's measures to prevent children's access and protect their sensitive data as "inadequate."
• Federal Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne stated that TikTok must enhance its methods to keep underage users off the platform and improve transparency about data collection practices.
• The joint investigation revealed significant use of facial and voice analytics by TikTok, raising concerns about user profiling and data privacy.
• Despite previous security reviews, the Canadian government has decided not to block TikTok, instead ordering the dissolution of its Canadian business.

OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — TikTok’s efforts to keep children off the platform and prevent the collection and use of their sensitive personal information are “inadequate" but the company is taking steps to address concerns, Canadian privacy authorities said Tuesday.

Federal Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne said TikTok must do more to keep underage children off its platform and must better explain its data collection practices, especially to youth. The company has said the platform is not intended for people under the age of 13.

“Our investigation found that measures that TikTok uses to keep children off the popular video sharing platform and to prevent the collection and use of their sensitive personal information ... were inadequate," Dufresne said.

Dufresne said TikTok has agreed to enhance underage assurance methods to keep underage users off the platform and agreed to strengthen privacy communications so that users understand how their data is being used.

“There’s some steps that they still have to take. … For the moment, we find it’s conditionally resolved,” he said. “We are going to be monitoring the situation."

Dufresne said the privacy policies lack details and are hard to find.

The federal, Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia privacy commissioners released the results of their joint investigation, which they launched in 2023.

The investigation noted that in Quebec 40% of young people aged 6 to 17 have a TikTok account. It said among 6- to 12-year-olds, the proportion is 17%.

“We were certainly struck by how elaborate a profiling that was being used by TikTok,” British Columbia Privacy Commissioner Michael Harvey said. “What information was being collected with these facial and voice analytics and how they were always being used in combination with things like your location, information to create elaborate inferences about users, like what their spending power was and to use that, to then to decide what content, including advertising to feed back to them.”

Last year, the Canadian government said it won’t block access to the popular video-sharing app but ordered the dissolution of its Canadian business after a national security review of the Chinese company behind it.

U.S. President Donald Trump said prominent billionaires — including media mogul Rupert Murdoch and tech founder Michael Dell — could be part of a deal in which the U.S. will take control of the social video platform.