Misuse of children’s data lands TikTok with £12.7m fine

TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media platform, has been fined £12.7m by the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for breaching data protection law and failing to protect the privacy of children. 

The investigation conducted by the ICO found that TikTok allowed an estimated one million children under the age of 13 to access the platform without obtaining parental consent and collected their personal data. The breaches occurred between May 2018 and July 2020.

Information Commissioner John Edwards stated that TikTok did not comply with the laws that ensure the safety of children in the digital world. The personal data collected by TikTok could have been used to track and profile children, potentially exposing them to harmful and inappropriate content. The £12.7m fine reflects the serious impact of TikTok’s failures.

“TikTok should have known better. TikTok should have done better. Our £12.7m fine reflects the serious impact their failures may have had,” said Edwards.

TikTok, however, disagreed with the ICO’s decision and stated that it invested heavily to prevent children under 13 from accessing the platform. The platform’s safety team, which consists of 40,000 members, works around the clock to ensure the platform’s safety for its community, according to a TikTok spokesperson.

The ICO estimates that TikTok allowed up to 1.4 million UK children under 13 to use its platform in 2020, despite the platform’s rules not allowing children that age to create an account. Under UK data protection law, platforms that use personal data when offering information to children under 13 must have parental consent.

The £12.7m fine is one of the largest fines issued by the ICO, although it is half of what the ICO threatened TikTok with last year. In September, the ICO issued a “notice of intent” to TikTok, a precursor to a potential fine.

The ICO’s investigation found that TikTok did not do enough to verify the age of its users or obtain parental consent for children under 13. TikTok’s failure to comply with data protection law could have serious consequences for children’s privacy and safety online.

TikTok’s popularity among young people has raised concerns among regulators worldwide. The platform has faced similar fines and investigations in other countries, including the US and Italy. The UK’s £12.7m fine sends a strong message to social media platforms about the importance of protecting children’s privacy and complying with data protection law.