TikTok faces claim for billions in London child privacy lawsuit

FILE PHOTO: The TikTok logo is pictured outside the company's U.S. head office in Culver City, California, U.S., September 15, 2020. REUTERS/Mike Blake

LONDON (Reuters) - TikTok, the wildly popular video app, and its Chinese parent ByteDance could face a damages claim worth billions of pounds (dollars) in London's High Court over allegations they illegally harvested the private data of millions of European children.

Anne Longfield, the former Children's Commissioner for England and so-called "litigation friend", or public face, of an anoynmous 12-year-old girl leading the class action, said on Wednesday that affected children could receive thousands of pounds each if the claim is successful.