TikTok Fined £12.7m For Breaching Child Protection Law

Uploaded on 2023-04-04 in GOVERNMENT-National, GOVERNMENT-Law Enforcement, FREE TO VIEW, BUSINESS-Services-Law

TikTok has received a £12.7m fine from the British data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) for failing to protect the privacy of over 1m children. This is because it “failed to use children’s personal data lawfully” and “did not do enough” to prevent underage children using its platform the ICO said.

The video-sharing site used the data of children aged under 13 without parental consent, according to an ICO investigation. The fine is one of the largest the ICO has ever issued.

The Chinese-owned video app had not done enough to check who was using the platform and remove underage children, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said on 4th April. It estimated TikTok allowed up to 1.4 million UK children of this age to use the platform in 2020. TikTok said it had "invested heavily" to stop under 13s accessing the site.

UK data protection law does not have a strict ban on children using the Internet but requires organisations that use the personal data of children to obtain consent from their parents or carers.

Despite TikTok's rules requiring children under 13 to have parental consent to use the platform, the ICO said many were able to set up accounts without this. It said that children's data may have been used to track and profile them, and potentially present them with harmful or inappropriate content.

The Information Commissioner John Edwards 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. As a consequence, an estimated one million under-13s were inappropriately granted access to the platform, with TikTok collecting and using their personal data... TikTok should have known better. TikTok should have done better. Our £12.7m fine reflects the serious impact their failures may have had."

TikTok is allowed to appeal against the scale of the fine and has 28 days to make representations. If successful, the ICO could reduce the final amount. The regulator has a maximum of 16 weeks, from issuing the notice of a proposed fine to delivering its final verdict.

“Since the conclusion of the ICO’s investigation of TikTok, the regulator has published the Children’s code to help protect children in the digital world. It is a statutory code of practice aimed at online services, such as apps, gaming platforms and web and social media sites, that are likely to be accessed by children,” says the ICO.

In 2019, TikTok was fined $5.7m by the US Federal Trade Commission for similar practices. That fine, a record at the time, was also levied against TikTok for improper data collection from children under 13.

The company subsequently committed to improving its practices and said it would begin keeping younger users in “age-appropriate TikTok environments”, where those under 13 would be pushed into a more passive role, able to watch videos, but not post or comment on the platform.

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