Foreign Ministers: ‘In Tiktok, teens need to take care of themselves’

Tiktok, along with Instagram, is the most popular social media channel for 12-16 year olds. Numerous complaints and investigations have shown that protecting users, and minors in particular, leaves something to be desired in terms of consumer law compliance and data protection.

At the European level, the Irish Data Protection Authority is already investigating how Tiktok manages and processes children’s data.

The Belgian Data Protection Authority joined this investigation. Ministers of State De Bleecker and Michel are asking that the data protection authority consider what else can be done at the national level. With this they want to avoid the “bottleneck” risks in Ireland as much as possible. In this way, our data protection authority will be compliant with similar investigations being conducted by the Dutch and Italian authorities.

fundamental right

Children and young people should be aware of what can happen to their data. It can’t be that a big company like Tiktok, with its mainly young customers, hide behind obscurity. Correct and transparent information is a fundamental right of the consumer,” says Secretary of State de Bleecker.

I want our citizens, and our youth in particular, a digital environment with the same level of protection as in the real world. That is why we are directing this question to the Data Protection Authority, concludes Secretary of State Michel.