65,000 Europeans request personal data from Zoom, Palantir and TikTok

About 65,000 Europeans have submitted a request to video calling service Zoom, data collector Palantir and video app TikTok about what personal data the tech companies have collected about them, the Foundation for Market Information Research (SOMI) said that the applicants helped with the process.

This article was published on 29th July 2021 on Datasecurity.nl in the Netherlands. Please find the English translation below.

SOMI wants to use the data request to find out which data the tech companies collect, how and where it is stored and with which parties the data is shared. In this way, the foundation wants to be able to determine whether the companies comply with European privacy legislation.

SOMI has deliberately chosen the three companies mentioned because it has a better chance of meeting with these three and getting something done than would be the case with a Facebook or Google, for example, says Cor Wijtvliet, co-founder of the foundation, to the BNR.

According to SOMI, the companies store and trade users' data and pretend it is their data. According to Wijtvliet, Palantir in particular is "outright crooks". The company, together with the CIA and NSA, is developing software to process and store large amounts of data, whereby people can incorrectly get "an asterisk behind their name", according to the SOMI co-founder.

The companies have one month to respond to the data request. In June, SOMI launched another mass claim against TikTok because the popular video app allegedly violated children's privacy.