TikTok fined $365 million by European watchdog over failure to protect children’s privacy
Christopher Hutton
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TikTok has been fined over $365 million by Europe’s data watchdog over allegations that it failed to protect underage users’ data adequately.
The Irish Data Protection Commission announced on Friday that it was fining TikTok hundreds of millions of euros. The company had asked the popular social platform to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation, Europe’s current data protection laws. The agency launched an investigation in 2021 into the company’s data practices and pressured it to amend its policies.
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The agency found that TikTok allowed children on its platform in a manner that left them publicly exposed to viewers without any restraints. It also allowed users to activate “Family Pairing,” a feature that pairs a child user with a nonchild user, without confirming the two users are related.
This fine will be the largest TikTok has received from the European Union. The largest fine to date was when the EU fined Meta $1.3 billion in May over transferring European personal data to servers in the United States.
Meta received a 750,000-euro fine in 2021 after the Dutch data protection authority decided that TikTok failed to protect Dutch children by not having its privacy policy in their native language.
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TikTok has dealt with privacy problems in the past. The China-based company accessed the data of U.S. users from its headquarters in Shanghai despite several statements claiming China could not access it.
TikTok did not respond to requests for comment from the Washington Examiner.