UK privacy regulators fined TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance (BDNCE), £12.7 million ($16 million) for failing to protect children’s data.
TikTok has allowed 1.4 million children under the age of 13 to use the app in 2020, despite its own rules that require users to be above this age to create a TikTok account, the regulator said. Recently, TikTok was investigated by the Justice Department for possible spying on citizens and journalists.
John Edwards, the UK Information Commissioner, said in a statement that TikTok “should have known better” and “should have done better.”
“Our £12.7m fine reflects the serious impact their failures may have had. They did not do enough to verify who was using their platform or take enough steps to remove underage children who were using their platform. “.
“As a result, approximately one million children under the age of 13 were granted inappropriate access to the platform, and TikTok collected and used their personal data.” he added.
The Information Commissioner’s Office claims the data breaches occurred between May 2018 and July 2020.
In early March, TikTok pushed for a one-hour screen time limit for teens.