Italy warns TikTok over privacy policy switch
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Loading... - Frieda Wagner
- 22 Sep 2022
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TikTok’s attempt to switch legal basis for targeting advertising at users in Europe looks to be in trouble after Italy’s data protection watchdog stepped in and issued a warning of legal inadequacy just days ahead of the planned privacy policy change.
The user-generated video sharing platform attracted attention from privacy experts last month when it quietly disclosed an incoming change to its T&Cs for users in the European Economic Area, the U.K. and Switzerland, which it said would apply from July 13 — to shift from relying on consent to process user data to run “personalized” ads to claiming a legal basis known as ‘legitimate interests’ and saying it would therefore stop asking users for their permission to be tracked for targeted ads.
Privacy experts quickly questioned whether the switch would pass muster with data protection regulators.
The answer — at least in Italy — appears to be no.
Writing in a press release announcing its “formal warning” to TikTok, the Italian authority — which said it “immediately” began a fact-finding exercise on hearing of TikTok’s planned privacy policy revision — has concluded that the planned switch of legal basis is incompatible with the EU directive and with the local data protection law that transposed the EU’s framework. Read More...
