San Francisco (AFP)

A student at a California university has filed a class action lawsuit against the TikTok application, which she accuses of harvesting large amounts of user data and storing it in China.

"TikTok clandestinely snatches vast amounts of private data and transfers them to servers in China," says the complaint, consulted by AFP.

Misty Hong, a student in Palo Alto, filed it with a California federal court last Wednesday, according to information revealed by The Daily Beast.

The video sharing app, popular with teenagers all over the world, belongs to the Chinese group ByteDance.

"This data can be used to identify users in the United States, where they are and what they are doing, now and in the future," the complaint continues. "In summary, the fun offered TikTok is very expensive."

The judicial fronts are multiplying for the ultra popular application. In early November, a US federal agency opened a national security inquiry into ByteDance's purchase of Musical.ly, its original name, two years ago.

According to an unnamed New York Times source, the US government has evidence that the app sends data to China.

Misty Hong claims that the application retrieved her data without her permission - including videos she had created but not shared online - and transferred them to servers run by companies that cooperate with the Chinese government.

She filed her complaint on behalf of all Americans who downloaded TikTok, about 110 million people.

TikTok did not respond immediately to AFP's request for response.

In November, she said she could not comment on a possible investigation by a US agency, but stressed "not to have more priority than gain the respect of our users and regulators in the United States."

TikTok also distanced itself from Chinese power and said its servers were located outside of China and therefore their "data" was "not subject to Chinese law".

In early 2019, the application passed the billion downloads mark in the world, not to mention China (where the equivalent app is called Douyin), according to Sensor Tower.

© 2019 AFP