UK Fined TikTok €14.5 million For “Misusing Children’s Data”

TikTok was fined £12.7 million (€14.5 million) by the UK’s data authority for using children’s data improperly. The company is accused of breaking several data protection laws in the UK, including failing to use children’s personal information legitimately.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said that despite the company’s own regulations prohibiting minors under the age of 13 from opening an account, TikTok may have enabled as many as 1.4 million UK children under the age of 13 access to its platform in 2020.

Organizations using the personal information of children under 13 must obtain parental permission under UK data protection law.

“TikTok also failed to carry out adequate checks to identify and remove underage children from its platform,” the ICO said in a statement.

“There are laws in place to make sure our children are as safe in the digital world as they are in the physical world. TikTok did not abide by those laws, said John Edwards, the UK information commissioner.

“As a consequence, an estimated one million under 13s were inappropriately granted access to the platform, with TikTok collecting and using their personal data. That means that their data may have been used to track them and profile them, potentially delivering harmful, inappropriate content on their very next scroll.

“They did not do enough to check who was using their platform or take sufficient action to remove the underage children that were using their platform”.

TikTok stated that it disapproved of the watchdog’s choice.

“We invest heavily to help keep under 13s off the platform and our 40,000-strong safety team works around the clock to help keep the platform safe for our community,” the company said in a statement.

“We will continue to review the decision and are considering the next steps”.

The penalty is levied as the app, which is owned by the Chinese business Bytedance, is under intense scrutiny over concerns about data security and privacy.

Governments in a number of nations have outlawed employees from using the app on company-issued phones and gadgets due to security concerns.

“It’s interesting to note, particularly with the current spate of government bans on the app on work devices, that the £12.7 million (€14.5 million) fine partly relates to general transparency failures,” Nigel Jones, the co-founder of Privacy Compliance Hub, told Euronews Next.

“TikTok has also been fined for failing to provide information to its users about how their data is collected, used, and shared in a way that is clear and easily understandable and for failing to ensure that UK users’ data is processed lawfully and fairly”.

“We all need to understand exactly what TikTok is doing with our data so we can decide for ourselves whether we should delete the app too,” he added.

According to the ICO, its inquiry revealed that a worry about minors under 13 accessing the network and not being taken down was voiced internally at TikTok by several senior staff. It claimed that, in its opinion, TikTok’s response was insufficient.

A spokeswoman for TikTok stated in a statement: “We encourage a culture of transparency and feedback across our teams, and also work closely with industry experts and partners to improve our policies and enforcement processes. There’s no finish line when it comes to keeping our community safe.”