The Italian Data Protection Authority (DPA) has banned the use of the TikTok application for people whose identity cannot be ascertained, after the suicide of a 10-year-old girl who participated in a challenge via the social network.
Italian officials confirmed, according to a report published by the British newspaper “The Guardian”, that the child was easily able to use a fake birth date to create an account on the service that requires the user to be over the age of 13, which ultimately led to her death from suffocation, during one of the challenges.
The Italian authority confirmed that TikTok violated the Italian law, which obliges social networks to obtain parental consent when a user under the age of 14 tries to create an account with them.
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| TikTok App |
The DPA also indicated that TikTok did not abide by the laws of data sharing and storing, as the social network is no longer warning messages intended for children, and the default settings for posts are to reach the general public, instead of making them private to friends, leaving the choice to the user.
The Italian data protection authority on the TikTok network also claimed that it did not clarify the period in which it kept user data and how it would record the data it collects from user accounts.
Banned to February 15th
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| TikTok banned |
It is scheduled that the implementation of the ban will continue until February 15, and until that date, TikTok will have the opportunity to reconcile its situation, by Italian laws.
On the other hand, a TikTok spokesperson responded to the Italian authority’s decision by saying that the social network does not allow the circulation of any content that encourages, promotes, or boasts dangerous business and behavior that exposes users to danger.
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