Our government has begun an inspection into the possibility that the Chinese short-form platform 'TikTok' may have violated the Personal Information Protection Act.
According to related industries on the 7th, the Personal Information Protection Commission recently started reviewing materials related to TikTok's potential violations of the Personal Information Protection Act. If any violations are found through the review of materials, a full investigation is expected to commence according to the procedures.
TikTok and TikTok Lite do not disclose a way to view the detailed contents of the service terms and privacy policy upon sign-up. As a result, they are suspected of violating Article 22, Paragraph 1 of the Personal Information Protection Act, which relates to obtaining consent for personal information collection.
The part corresponding to marketing and advertising consent should be classified as 'optional consent' rather than 'mandatory consent' bundled within the privacy policy consent items. However, TikTok forces advertising consent immediately upon sign-up, which has also been pointed out as a problem.
TikTok is also criticized for being insufficient in preventing the overseas leakage of personal information. Foreign companies to which TikTok can transfer Korean users' personal information include subsidiaries of its parent company, the Chinese ByteDance Group, such as Beijing Youzhuj Network, Beijing Jitiao Network, and Shanghai Suixuntong Electronic, where the Chinese Communist Party can exert influence through party committees within the companies. However, the list of these companies can only be confirmed after navigating through several steps on the privacy policy page.
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