May 21, 2020

TikTok Privacy Concerns, Senior Scams, and more

Popular Video App Fails to Carry Out Agreement to Protect Children's Privacy

The New York Times reported that TikTok, a popular video app which has soared in popularity with American's sheltering at home during the pandemic, has failed to make changes it agreed to carry out with the Federal Trade Commission to settle charges that one of its predecessor companies, Musical.ly, had violated the federal children’s online privacy law. Alleged violations included collecting names, email addresses, videos and other personal information from users under the age of 13 without a parent’s consent. Members of Congress have also raised national security concerns about TikTok’s growing influence and about the risk that the app may share user data.

Check Here for Additional Social Media Safety Information

Common Online Scams Targeting Seniors

Consumer Champion reports that each year, millions of senior citizens are victimized by online scams to the tune of 36 billion dollars.

Scams include:

Relationship Scams
Charity Scams
Non-Existent Credit Card Offers
Email Phishing
Online Vacation Scams
Lottery and Winning Scams

Learn How How Senior Citizens Can Protect Themselves From Internet Scams

Online Predators 'More Active Than Ever' During COVID-19 Crisis, Experts Say

(Article excerpt): "Bruce Moats is a cybercrime investigator for the Fort Bend County District Attorney’s Office. Moats is dedicated to hunting down online predators and bringing them to justice. According to Moats, his office is seeing more activity from online predators than ever before.

'With COVID-19, these sexual predators are out of work or maybe working from home. Now they have even more time to devote to looking for kids on the internet,' Moats explained. 'Then add to that the fact that kids are online all the time and parents are distracted, trying to work at their jobs. There’s been a significant uptick in online exploitation of children.'”

To Read the Full Article from the Houston Chronicle, Click Here

Enough Is Enough^®'s
"5 Steps to Mitigate Online Harms to Children"