France fines TikTok more than 5 million USD for violations related to “cookies”

France’s data protection agency (CNIL) said the investigation only focused on tiktok.com website, not TikTok’s services segment, which relies heavily on smartphone apps.

From May 2020 to June 2022, CNIL performed a number of online control tasks on the tiktok.com website and on documents requested by CNIL from the company.

The results of the investigation showed that, CNIL said, the company violated Article 82 of the Data Protection Act because it did not have appropriate measures to accept and refuse cookies. CNIL found that for tiktok.com users, refusing cookies was not as easy as accepting them. Or to be more specific, tiktok.com offers a one-click option for users to accept all cookies, but no one-click option to refuse them. So it essentially manipulates consent by making it easier for site visitors if to accept cookie tracking than to refuse.

The agency also found that internet users were not fully informed about TikTok’s use of cookies. Here, CNIL found that TikTok failed to “fully and accurately” inform users of the purpose of cookies both on the information banner presented at the first level of cookie consent and in the the framework of the “selection interface” is accessible after clicking on the link shown in the banner. As a result, TikTok has committed several violations in Article 82 of the Data Protection Act.

(Image: Getty)

ByteDance, the company that owns the short-video sharing app TikTok, claims to have solved this problem by 2022 by enabling users to refuse unnecessary “cookies” and provide more information. about the purpose of these files.

A TikTok spokesperson said: “These findings relate to previous methods we addressed last year, including making it easier to refuse unnecessary cookies and provide information additional about the purpose of certain cookies”.

TikTok confirmed, CNIL has appreciated TikTok’s cooperation in the investigation process and user privacy remains the top priority of this application.

According to European Union (EU) regulations, websites must ask Internet users about the use of cookies, as well as make it easy for users to refuse files.