TikTok, Big Tech and where your data is going
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 7 August 2024
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
TikTok, which says it has 170 million U.S. users, made it too easy for children to create accounts and then collected data on those who did — a major violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, known as COPPA, the Justice Department alleged in a lawsuit on Friday. But tech companies collecting and selling data from users goes far beyond TikTok — and affects everyone.
Post Reports co-host Martine Powers speaks with technology reporter Drew Harwell about why the Justice Department is suing TikTok for storing the data of millions of children. And she talks with NOTUS investigative reporter Byron Tau, who shares all of the ways that apps gather information on us — and sell that information to law enforcement and governments.
Plus, learn how sea lions are mapping the ocean floor with cameras attached to their backs. Check out the video here.
Today’s show was produced by Emma Talkoff and Trinity Webster-Bass. It was edited by Reena Flores, with help from Arie Plotnick, and mixed by Sean Carter and Rennie Svirnovskiy.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So Drew, tell me, how easy or hard is it for a kid to make a Tik-Toc account? |
| 0:10.0 | Really easy. |
| 0:12.0 | Way too easy in the Department of Justice's edition. |
| 0:17.0 | Drew Harwell covers technology for the post. |
| 0:22.0 | Last week, the Justice Department sued |
| 0:24.5 | Tik-Tok and its China-based parent company, Bite Dance. Kids younger than 13 are |
| 0:30.3 | not allowed to make Tik-Tok accounts outside of the app's kids mode. |
| 0:34.0 | At least, that is how it's supposed to work. |
| 0:37.0 | But, you know, the Department of Justice has basically come out and said that it was really easy for kids to create accounts. |
| 0:45.0 | Either they would, you know, just lie about their age or they would go through like a third party website, |
| 0:52.0 | like a Google or an Instagram and use those |
| 0:53.8 | account credentials to create a Tik-Tok account. The DOJ said that millions of |
| 0:58.8 | kids made a Tik-Tok accounts that way and once they did the app vacuumed up their data just like it would |
| 1:05.1 | for adult users. There's actually a law from the 90s that protects kids from that |
| 1:09.9 | kind of privacy violation. It's called the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or Kappa. |
| 1:17.0 | There are so few laws actually around data privacy in this country. this is one of the only ones out there. |
| 1:25.1 | And what it says basically is that tech companies can't keep data on kids who are under the |
| 1:31.2 | age of 13. |
| 1:32.6 | But the DOJ says Tik-Toc was keeping kids data. |
| 1:37.1 | A lot of it. |
| 1:38.4 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post reports. I'm Martine Powers. It's |
| 1:47.3 | Wednesday, August 7th. Today, we are digging into the case that the US government is building against |
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