Canada’s privacy commissioner and his counterparts in Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta are set to reveal their findings Tuesday from a joint investigation of TikTok, particularly how the popular video-sharing app handled younger users’ data.
The officials will release their report and hold a joint press conference at 1 p.m. Eastern in Ottawa.
The findings will come as a deal between the United States and China is expected to be finalized as soon as this week, after years of growing privacy and national security concerns over the Chinese app that has come to dominate the media landscape.
The Canadian investigation was launched in 2023, with the four commissioners saying they intended to dig into whether TikTok’s practices comply with Canadian privacy legislation, and whether “meaningful consent is being obtained for the collection, use and disclosure of personal information.”
Calling younger users “an important proportion” of TikTok’s user base, the commissioners said the investigation would have a “particular focus” on how the company obtained and used young people’s data.
Toronto Metropolitan University’s Social Media Lab reported in May that one-third of Canadian adults have a TikTok account, but that 65 per cent of adults aged 18 to 24 and 59 per cent of those aged 25 to 34 use the app. In the U.S., nearly six in 10 adults under 30 and 63 per cent of teenagers between 13 and 17 are on TikTok, the Pew Research Center said in December.
The investigation also cited settled lawsuits in the U.S. and Canada that accused TikTok of illegally collecting children’s data.
Since the Canadian probe was announced, Ottawa has banned TikTok from government devices and launched a national security review into the company and its Chinese owner ByteDance.
That review resulted in the closure of TikTok’s Canadian business offices in late 2024, although the app remains available to Canadian users. The government has never revealed its national security findings or explained in detail why it feels the app is still safe to use, only calling it a “personal choice” to remain on the platform.
Federal privacy commissioner Philippe Dufresne told the House of Commons ethics committee in December that the windup of TikTok Canada would make it more difficult to compel witness testimony and documents from the company as part of his joint investigation.
The conclusion of the review came after former prime minister Justin Trudeau told Canadians to heed a warning from then-CSIS director David Vigneault, who told CBC last year that TikTok users’ data “is going to be available to the Government of China.”
Western governments have warned that ByteDance is subject to Chinese national security laws that allow the ruling Chinese Communist Party to access any company’s data as the government sees fit.
Concerns have also been raised about the possibility of Chinese authorities manipulating TikTok’s prized recommendation algorithm to shape the content users see.
TikTok had sought to move American data to a U.S.-based and controlled data centre and oversight board known as Project Texas, but U.S. lawmakers cast doubt on the efficacy of that plan so long as ByteDance still controlled the platform.
Last year, Congress passed a law that would ban the app in the U.S. unless ByteDance divested itself of TikTok and its algorithm.
The ban briefly went into effect in January after TikTok and ByteDance refused a sale and unsuccessfully fought the legislation in court, but U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly extended the deadline to make room for a deal with China.
The framework of a deal came into place last week after talks between American and Chinese officials.
The White House confirmed Monday that the framework calls for a consortium of investors, including Oracle and Silver Lake, to take over the U.S. operations of TikTok in a process that might not be completed until early next year.
Trump is expected to issue an executive order later this week that declares that the terms of the deal meet the security concerns laid out by the law. China still needs to sign off on the framework proposal, and any final deal would still require regulatory approval.
—With files from The Associated Press