The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) have announced on Tuesday that TikTok has been fined £12.7 million because they “did not do enough” to stop up to 1.4 million children under the age of 13 to not use the platform.
This is less than half of what the ICO were going to fine the social media platform as initially they were going to fine them £27 million, TikTOk has said that they disagree with the decision.
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,” said information commissioner John Edwards.
“As a consequence, an estimated one million under-13s were inappropriately granted access to the platform, with TikTok collecting and using their personal data.
“That means that their data may have been used to track them and profile them, potentially delivering harmful, inappropriate content at their very next scroll.
“TikTok should have known better. TikTok should have done better. Our £12.7m fine reflects the serious impact their failures may have had.
“They did not do enough to check who was using their platform or take sufficient action to remove the underage children that were using their platform.”
TikTok said: “TikTok is a platform for users aged 13 and over. We invest heavily to help keep under 13s off the platform and our 40,000 strong safety team works around the clock to help keep the platform safe for our community.
“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.”
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