By Caroline Goulding, Data Protection Officer, TikTok

Data Privacy Day was established in 2007 to raise awareness and promote privacy and data protection best practices. It is an opportunity for organizations of all kinds to educate people about the importance of protecting personal information, the choices and control they have over their personal data and how companies work towards ensuring personal data is kept private and secure.

This Data Privacy Day 2024, we're taking some time to reflect on the strides we've made in the past year by highlighting some key initiatives and developments in privacy and data security:

TikTok Global Privacy Center

In December, we introduced the TikTok Global Privacy Center, a dedicated resource intended to help people stay informed about TikTok's privacy and data protection practices, privacy-related updates to our platform and other relevant news. We hope the Global Privacy center serves as a go-to resource for the TikTok community and others who are interested in our approach to privacy and data protection. Next month, we'll launch a series of in-app videos intended to educate people on TikTok about best practices in privacy and data security.

Industry-Leading Investment in Project Clover

We announced an investment of more than €12bn in Europe over the next ten years to deliver Project Clover, our industry-leading security programme that aims to provide robust protection for European user data. This investment includes, among other things, the launch of a Norway data center and two other data centers in Ireland, which will be home to protected user data. It also includes independent third party oversight of our approach, and implementation of privacy enhancing technologies to further protect people's data. You can read more here.

Privacy Protective Changes to Ads for Younger Users

We're also committed to being transparent with people, including the youngest members of the TikTok community, about how we collect, use and share their data. In June, we announced updates intended to limit how certain types of data are used to show ads to teens. We also announced a series of features designed to provide people with additional transparency and control over their data.

HackerOne

TikTok has worked with HackerOne for more than three years on our bug bounty program, encouraging leading third-party security researchers to proactively identify and disclose vulnerabilities so our team can quickly resolve them. In 2022, we became a founding sponsor of HackerOne's Corporate Security Responsibility (CSecR) pledge, honoring transparency, collaboration, innovation, and differentiation as core principles to help create a safer digital world for everyone. In 2023, TikTok participated in the final round of HackerOne's Ambassador World Cup, inviting the top ethical hackers from around the world to test our defenses in a live hacking event.

#BeCyberSmart

TikTok has continued to champion the #BeCyberSmart series, a collection of posts and videos promoting best practices for online data safety and defending your digital footprint. Topics have included recommendations related to information on PINs, guidance for privacy controls, app updates, password management, the importance of two-step verification and newly-launched passkeys for account security, plus much more.

TikTok Facts

We also launched TikTok Facts, a new series intended to set the record straight about the information TikTok collects and how we use, share, and protect it. In the first posts, we looked at common misperceptions, how we secure personal information and store data, and the basics of how ads work on TikTok.

You can stay updated on new initiatives and features by visiting our Global Privacy Center.