Violations include using data of children without parental consent, says information commissioner
TikTok has been fined £12.7m for multiple breaches of data protection law, including using the personal data of children aged under 13 without parental consent, Britain’s data watchdog has said.
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 Tuesday.
The failure to enforce age limits led to “up to 1.4 million UK children” under the age of 13 using the platform as of 2020, the ICO estimated, even though the company’s own rules banned the practice. 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.
In a statement, the information commissioner, John Edwards, said: “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 1 million under-13s were inappropriately granted access to the platform, with TikTok collecting and using their personal data.
