The brand new rewards app TikTok Lite arrived within the two international locations this month and permits customers aged 18 and over to earn factors that may be exchanged for items like vouchers or reward playing cards.
The fee mentioned TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, ought to have carried out the chance evaluation earlier than deploying the app and now desires “extra particulars”.
Commercial
The demand “issues the potential influence of the brand new ‘Job and Reward Lite’ programme on the safety of minors, in addition to on the psychological well being of customers, particularly in relation to the potential stimulation of addictive behaviour”, it mentioned.
The fee mentioned in an announcement it additionally desires to know what measures the platform has put in place to mitigate the dangers recognized.
The request for data was made beneath a brand new content material moderation legislation generally known as the Digital Companies Act (DSA), which has stringent guidelines for 22 of the world’s largest on-line platforms together with TikTok.
The demand is a primary step in a process and doesn’t imply TikTok will face additional motion. That may rely on what data the corporate offers to the EU.
Alongside the 24-hour deadline for the chance evaluation, TikTok should present the opposite data by April 26, the fee mentioned.
The corporate mentioned it could honour the request.
“Now we have already been in direct contact with the fee concerning this product and can reply to the request for data,” a TikTok spokesperson mentioned.
This isn’t the primary time TikTok is within the European Union’s crosshairs.
Brussels in February opened a proper probe beneath the DSA into TikTok over alleged breaches of its obligations to guard minors on-line.
Its focus is very on whether or not the corporate is doing sufficient to handle unfavourable impacts on younger folks.
The fee has made comparable requests for data from TikTok over different points together with the dangers to imminent EU elections in June from synthetic intelligence.