A landmark Supreme Court ruling on a £3bn data protection claim against Google is ‘fatal’ to a similar claim against social media platform TikTok, the High Court heard today.

The judgment of the UK’s highest court in Lloyd v Google appears to be having a significant impact on the viability of mass data protection claims, following the discontinuation of two other claims in recent months.

Children’s commissioner for England Anne Longfield is trying to bring a representative action on behalf of all children who were resident in the UK or anywhere in the European Economic Area who had an account with and used TikTok since May 2018.

The claim, for alleged unlawful processing of personal data and misuse of private information on behalf of as many as 3.5m children, alleges that TikTok could be liable in damages for a sum between £1.7bn and £5.1bn.

TikTok app logo shown on phone

TikTok: Supreme Court ruling in Lloyd v Google poses ‘insuperable hurdles’ to data claim

Source: iStock

However, TikTok argues that the Lloyd ruling – which has already led to the withdrawal of two similar claims, one against YouTube and another against Google and DeepMind Technologies over an arrangement with the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust – poses ‘insuperable hurdles to the claim proceeding’.

An application for summary judgment by the defendants to the TikTok claim has been filed and is likely to be heard later this year, the court heard today.

At a hearing to decide whether the claim can be served on defendants not domiciled in the UK, the claimant’s lawyers argued that section 13 of the Data Protection Act 1998 – which was at the centre of the Lloyd case – is ‘materially different’ to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), on which the present claim is based.

In written submissions, the claimant’s barrister Charles Ciumei QC said the Supreme Court ‘expressly’ did not engage with the GDPR, adding that the tort of misuse of private information was ‘not in issue’ in Lloyd.

But Anya Proops QC – representing TikTok Information Technologies Limited, the only UK-domiciled defendant – said the Lloyd judgment had a ‘fatal impact’ on the claim.

Mr Justice Nicklin is expected to reserve judgment on the claimant’s application and the hearing continues.