TikTok fined £12.7m for misusing children’s data
'TikTok should have known better. TikTok should have done better', says UK information commissioner
UK data watchdog the Information Comissioner's Office (ICO) has fined TikTok for misusing the personal data of children under 13, and failing to do enough to prevent them from signing up for the app.
An investigation by the ICO between May 2018 and July 2020, the ICO found multiple contraventions of the UK GDPR by the popular social media app.
TikTok's own rules disallow children under 13 from creating an account, but the ICO estimated it had 1.4 million underage users in the UK in 2020.
The regulator found the company was processing the data of these children "without consent or authorisation from their parents or carers," and that it failed to ensure the data was processed in a fair and transparent manner. It said that information about this processing was inadequate, with users unable to make an informed choice before signing up.
UK data protection law requires organisations that use the personal data of children to obtain consent from their parents or guardians.
The £12.7 million fine is less than half of the original figure set by the ICO of £27 million. The fine was reduced after representations from TikTok caused the regulator to abandon a further charge related to the unlawful use of special category data.
In 2021, after the period for which TikTok was fined, the ICO published a children's code, with 15 rules for online services to follow in order to protect young people.
Information commissioner John Edwards said in a statement that the data collected by TikTok may have been used to track and profile the children, "potentially delivering harmful, inappropriate content at their very next scroll."
He added: "TikTok should have known better. TikTok should have done better. Our £12.7 million fine reflects the serious impact their failures may have had."
TikTok was fined for similar offences by the US Federal Trade Commission in 2019. The US regulator found it was collecting names, email addresses and other personal information from users under the age of 13, and not doing enough to prevent them from signing up.
TikTok says it has since changed its practices, adding measures to detect underage users and a more proactive approach to deleting such accounts.
A TikTok spokesperson said: "While we disagree with the ICO's decision, which relates to May 2018 - July 2020, we are pleased that the fine announced today has been reduced to under half the amount proposed last year. We will continue to review the decision and are considering next steps."
Recent research by Mozilla and YouGov found that 15% of UK children spend 5 to 10 hours per day on the internet, with the majority of that time spent gaming (75%) or watching video entertainment (73%). 41% of UK parents don't believe their children can sufficiently protect themselves online.
