Italy: Data protection authority warns TikTok regarding personalised advertisements

On 7 July 2022, the Italian data protection authority (Garante per la protezione dei dati personali) issued a formal warning to TikTok regarding "personalised" advertisements. The authority explained that TikTok had informed its users over the age of 18 that they would receive "personalised" advertisements based on profiling of their behaviour on the platform and accordingly changed its privacy policy to allow personal data processing based on "legitimate interests". Consequently, the authority opened an investigation into the changes in the privacy policy and concluded that the change in legal basis was a violation of the ePrivacy Directive (EU Directive 2002/58) and Italian data protection law. The authority thus adopted an emergency decision warning TikTok that personal data stored on user devices can not be used without the explicit consent of users for profiling user behaviour to send personalised advertising. Additionally, the authority expressed concern regarding minor protection, given the issues TikTok encountered in verifying the age of users.