(Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Commerce Fee mentioned on Tuesday it had referred a criticism to the Justice Division in opposition to the social media platform TikTok and its mother or father firm ByteDance over potential violations of the Kids’s On-line Privateness Act.
In March, a supply instructed Reuters the FTC might resolve a probe into TikTok over allegedly defective privateness and information safety practices by both submitting go well with or reaching a settlement.
“The investigation uncovered cause to imagine named
defendants are violating or are about to violate the regulation and {that a} continuing is within the public curiosity, so the Fee has voted to refer a criticism to the Division of Justice,” the FTC mentioned in a press release.
“Though the Fee doesn’t sometimes make public
the truth that it has referred a criticism, we have now decided that doing so right here is within the public curiosity,” the assertion continued, with out giving particulars.
The probe is separate from ongoing issues in Congress in regards to the potential that the info of TikTok’s 170 million U.S. customers could possibly be improperly accessed by the Chinese language authorities. TikTok denies the allegation.