Yekaterina Mizulina, member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation and director of the Safe Internet League, told socialbites.ca that YouTube has repeatedly been seen collecting personal data from young users. According to the expert, video hosting does this to profit from targeted advertising and use this information to run algorithms responsible for content recommendations.
Ekaterina Mizulina believes that video hosting behavior raises many questions and concerns.
“While YouTube is regularly caught collecting children’s personal data, representatives of the site repeatedly claim that the video hosting company does not collect such information, allegedly lacking the technical capabilities to identify a child, distinguish it from an adult user.” says.
In fact, that’s not the case, according to the Safe Internet League director – the site has the technical capabilities to perform analysis based on user preferences, which means platform representatives are reporting false information.
“Moreover, not only Russian users, but also users from all over the world are misled,” adds the expert.
He recalls that the video hosting company was registered in the United States, where a direct ban was imposed on the collection of such information about children.
“YouTube violates the laws of its own jurisdiction, which it always refers to in claims and lawsuits in other countries,” stresses a member of the Civil Department of the Russian Federation.
The most dangerous situation, according to Mizulina, has to do with the operation of video hosting recommendation algorithms.
“Parents contact the Safe Internet League and say that videos recommended for children often contain videos with devastating content about violence, murder, demonstrations of dead people, and other information dangerous to the child’s psyche,” she says.
Recall in early March, TASS reported that the UK Information Commissioner’s office would be considering a charity complaint alleging that YouTube violated the UK Children’s Law, introduced in 2020, and illegally collects data about children. The video hosting is accused of collecting information about the location, habits and preferences of at least 5 million children.