TIKTOK COULD FACE $29 MILLION FINE FOR FAILING TO PROTECT CHILDREN’S PRIVACY

TikTok is facing a £27 million ($29 million) fine after the U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) provisionally found that the company breached child data protection laws for a two-year period.

TikTok’s global rise over the past few years has been remarkable, giving incumbents such as Facebook a run for their money. Indeed, TikTok surpassed 1 billion active users last year, and children in particular are spending nearly as much time on TikTok as they are on YouTube in some markets, leading Google to invest heavily in a rival service called YouTube Shorts.

The alleged law breach happened from May 2018 through July 2020, with the ICO noting that the company “may have” processed data of children under the age of 13 without parental consent. Additionally, it said the company may have “failed to provide proper information to its users in a concise, transparent and easily understood way” and “processed special category data, without legal grounds to do so.”

In response to growing concerns over its data privacy practices, TikTok has tried to placate regulators somewhat. Back in 2019, it started restricting virtual gifting to those over the age of 18, before opening a “trust and safety hub” in Europe. Elsewhere, TikTok has disabled direct messaging for under 16s, and introduced features such as “family safety mode” and screen time management.

Special category data refers to sensitive personal data in areas such as sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnic and racial origin, political opinions and genetic and biometric data.