Brussels (AFP)
The European Data Protection Committee (EDPB) announced on Wednesday that it will examine the practices of the social network TikTok and warned against the use by European police of the facial recognition technology of Clearview AI.
The European regulator, who was holding its 31st plenary session, has announced its "decision to set up a team intended to coordinate potential actions and acquire a more complete vision of TikTok practices in the EU".
With its short videos, this Chinese platform ByteDance, popular with young adolescents, was already growing before the pandemic. It gained further popularity during confinement, now rallying many adults.
German MEP Moritz Körner (Liberal Renew) worried about the data collection methods of this social network, which in 2019 was fined by the American trade regulator, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) $ 5.7 million for illegally collecting personal data from minors.
Furthermore, regarding the facial recognition technology from the American company Clearview AI, the EDPB said it "shared" the concerns of MEPs about "certain developments".
The European regulator judges that "the use of a service like Clearview AI by the police authorities in the European Union risks, as it stands, not to be compatible with the European data protection regime".
In February, the Canadian regulator announced that it had launched an investigation into the federal police use of Clearview AI technology.
Facial recognition is increasingly used by police forces and customs agents around the world, but also to "identify" people on social networks or unlock smartphones and cars.
The New York Times devoted an investigation in January to the American start-up Clearview AI explaining that the latter developed a tool which enabled it to create a database, starting from the copy of more than 3 billion d images on social networks, without the consent of their owners. More than six hundred police services have started using the tool, the daily said.
© 2020 AFP