Chinese Tiktok has been both debated and questioned from several quarters. Security experts have pointed out that the service collects large amounts of data, US President Donald Trump has threatened to stop the app - which US IT giant Microsoft at the same time expressed interest in buying.

At the same time, Tiktok is extremely popular, not least among children. In 2019, four out of ten middle school children in Sweden used Tiktok and almost every fifth used it daily, according to the internet foundation IIS.

In Norway and Denmark, the figures are at similar levels. In Denmark, the number of young Tiktok users has doubled between 2019 and 2020.

At the same time, Tiktok is now being examined by the Danish Data Inspectorate, which according to DR wants to investigate whether children can in practice create accounts without the parents' consent.

Nowadays, children must have it.

Controversial age limit

When Sweden, Denmark and the rest of the EU introduced the data protection regulation GDPR, a kind of age limit for social media was included. People under the age of 13 need a parent's permission to register on sites that store personal data, where social media belongs (see fact box).

DR has met twelve-year-old "tiktokern" Lianna Riedel Frank with over a thousand videos and over ten thousand followers, who started an account with her mother's help and stated her real age in her profile text. After DR's report, Tiktok has now stopped her account.

Tiktok's spokesperson states in a comment to DR that Tiktok is intended for people who are 13 years or older, and that they stop younger users from starting accounts. If you find out that someone under 13 uses Tiktok, you investigate and take action.

The Swedish Data Inspectorate has not started its own supervisory case against Tiktok. On the other hand, the joint board of all EU data protection authorities, EDPB, has set up a working group to get a picture of Tiktok's actions.

"The working group itself does not include Sweden, but since the working group is set up by EDPB where Sweden is represented, it can be said that the investigation takes place for all the union's data protection authorities jointly," writes Nidia Nordenström, lawyer at the Swedish Data Inspectorate.

In a comment to SVT, a spokesperson from Tiktok writes that the company prioritises the protection of users' privacy and security, and that it will cooperate with the Danish Data Inspectorate in their investigation.

Tiktok has been preparing for a stronger establishment in Sweden for some time. Right now they have several job advertisements out with placement in Stockholm, among other things they are looking for a "community manager" who will be able to speak fluent Swedish and be a "TikTok evangelist".