TikTok facing £27 million fine for failing to protect children's privacy, regulator announces

Social media giant TikTok could be facing a multi-million-pound fine for failing to protect children’s privacy.

That’s according to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the body which polices the use of personal data by major organisations. It has announced this morning (September 26) that it has served TikTok Inc and TikTok Information Technologies UK Limited (‘TikTok’) with a ‘notice of intent’ — a legal document that precedes a potential £27 million fine.

The ICO has come to the ‘provisional view that TikTok breached UK data protection law between May 2018 and July 2020’ following an investigation. The probe found that TikTok may have processed the data of children under the age of 13 without appropriate parental consent, failed to provide proper information to its users in a concise, transparent and easily understood way, and processed special category data, without legal grounds to do so.

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“We all want children to be able to learn and experience the digital world, but with proper data privacy protections,” Information Commissioner, John Edwards, said in a statement. “Companies providing digital services have a legal duty to put those protections in place, but our provisional view is that TikTok fell short of meeting that requirement.

“I’ve been clear that our work to better protect children online involves working with organisations but will also involve enforcement action where necessary. In addition to this, we are currently looking into how over 50 different online services are conforming with the Children’s code and have six ongoing investigations looking into companies providing