Settlement Payment in TikTok Is Real: Who Is Eligible?

If you have been using TikTok these days, you may have gotten a notification that tells you about the possibility of receiving compensation from the social media platform, more specifically, its parent company ByteDance. The reason for such generosity is that the company agreed to pay out $92 million to settle claims that they gathered the personal information of users without their approval. For obvious reasons, a lot of people who got the notification thought that the message was a scam.

The first thing to note is that not every user of TikTok is eligible to get this compensation. Those who have been using Music.ly or TikTok before October 1st may be able to get a certain sum from the $92 million settlement. If you got this notification on your device, it is necessary to submit a claim to get your compensation.

When it comes to this settlement, it is the result of 21 lawsuits and the main theme is the collection of personal and biometric data from users of TikTok without their consent. The company used complex systems to recognize features of users and then offered content to them based on the collected information — age, gender, and more. Thanks to this, the company manage to overcome their competitors yet don’t follow the requirements regarding how such data should be handled.

While TikTok expressed their disagreement with such allegations, they still decided it would be better for them to pay millions of dollars rather than go through time-consuming litigation. The company consented to stop recording biometric information, particularly features of users, and also cease tracking their location. Also, when it comes to users from the U.S., they will stop sending such data outside of the country.

Do you use TikTok? Have you received this notification? Please, tell us if you plan to submit a claim in the comments below.