The Information Commissioner’s Office said it has provisionally found that TikTok breached U.K. data protection law between May 2018 and July 2020.
TikTok may face a £27 million ($29 million) fine in the U.K. after privacy regulators found failings in the company’s handling of children’s data.
The Information Commissioner’s Office issued TikTok a “notice of intent” informing the Chinese-owned video app of its “provisional view that TikTok breached UK data protection law between May 2018 and July 2020.” It follows an investigation into the company that began in 2019.
According to the ICO, TikTok may have processed the data of children under the age of 13 without parental consent, failed to present information to its users in a way that’s easy to understand, and processed “special category data” — such as information on a person’s race or ethnicity — without legal grounds.
“We all want children to be able to learn and experience the digital world, but with proper data privacy protections,” Information Commissioner John Edwards said in a statement Monday.
“Companies providing digital services have a legal duty to put those protections in place, but our provisional view is that TikTok fell short of meeting that requirement.
