French data privacy watchdog opens preliminary investigation into TikTok

France’s data privacy watchdog CNIL said on Tuesday that it was making preliminary investigations into TikTok after it received a complaint in May against the Chinese-owned video-sharing app.

TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, is already under investigation over privacy concerns by US, European Union and Dutch authorities.

“The CNIL began investigations into the tiktok.com website and the TikTok application in May 2020. The CNIL had indeed received a complaint at that date,” a spokesman for the authority said in written comments sent to Reuters on the case.

“To date, the CNIL continues its investigations and participates in ongoing European work.”