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University student sues TikTok in US over alleged transfer of data to China
- Lawsuit accuses video app of retrieving user data and transferring it to servers run by companies that cooperate with the Chinese government
- It comes after US opened national security investigation into the app
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A university student in California has filed a class-action lawsuit against video app TikTok, which she accuses of harvesting large amounts of user data and storing it in China.
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“TikTok clandestinely has vacuumed up and transferred to servers in China vast quantities of private and personally identifiable user data,” the court filing said.
Misty Hong, a student in Palo Alto, California, filed the suit against the Chinese-based app in a California federal court last week, according to a report in The Daily Beast on Monday.
The video platform, which is hugely popular with teenagers around the world, was launched by Chinese company ByteDance in September 2017.
“TikTok also has surreptitiously taken user content, such as draft videos never intended for publication, without user knowledge or consent,” the lawsuit alleges.
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“In short, TikTok’s lighthearted fun comes at a heavy cost,” it said.
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