The Chinese social network TikTok has been fined £12.7 million ($15.9 million) by the UK’s digital regulator, the ICO, due to its “illegal” use of children’s personal data, according to a statement. According to the ICO, TikTok allowed up to 1.4 million children under the age of 13 in the UK to open an account on its platform in 2020, contrary to its official rules, and also used their data without parental consent. The ICO’s investigation found that TikTok failed to carry out “adequate checks to identify and terminate the accounts of children” who were not old enough to use its platform, even though some managers had raised internal concerns about this.
UK Information Commissioner John Edwards said that “there are laws in place in the UK to ensure our children are safe in the digital world, and TikTok failed to uphold them,” according to the statement. The White House, European Commission, Canadian, British, and Australian governments recently banned their officials from using TikTok on their professional phones. The Norwegian Parliament and the Swedish military did the same last week. In addition, Washington accuses TikTok, a subsidiary of China’s ByteDance, of serving as a tool in Beijing to spy on and manipulate Americans.
This fine is an example of how regulators are stepping up their efforts to protect children online and enforce data privacy rules. Technology companies must be responsible in their use of their users’ personal data, especially when it involves children. As more people go online and use digital services, it is important that regulators work to ensure that standards are upheld and users’ rights are protected.