US senators ask for clarification on TikTok’s new privacy statement

Two US senators are asking TikTok’s CEO to explain more about the use of biometric data that the company has been collecting about its American users since the beginning of June. The senators say they are “alarmed” by TikTok’s plans.

In the letter U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar and John Thune ask TikTok’s CEO about the terms faceprint and voiceprint, which the company uses in its new US Terms of Use, clarify. The senators are annoyed that TikTok does not provide detailed information about how the company will use this biometric user data and with which third parties it may share it.

The senators also ask in the letter whether the biometric data is collected from persons under the age of eighteen, whether machine learning is applied to it and how long the biometric data is stored. The company must also provide more information about how it makes content and advertising recommendations, and how this collected data will be used for this purpose.

At the beginning of June, TikTok introduced new terms of use and privacy for all US users. The new conditions stated that the social media company may automatically collect biometric data about its users. This data includes facial prints, faceprints, and voice recordings, voiceprints. In the European Terms of Use of TikTok, collecting faceprints and voiceprints is not mentioned.