TikTok Fined $16 Million by UK Watchdog for Child Data Misuse

U.K. privacy regulators have fined Chinese-owned app TikTok £12.7 million ($15.9) million in a fresh blow to the Chinese-owned platform as it faces heightened scrutiny from regulators due to its failure to protect children's data.

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It was announced Tuesday that the United Kingdom's Information Commissioner's Office had fined TikTok "a number of penalties for a number of violations of data protection law, including failing to use children's personal information in a lawful manner."

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Despite its own rules that require users to be older than 13 in order to create a TikTok account, according to the watchdog, TikTok allowed 1.4 million children under the age of 13 to use the app in 2020.

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During the meeting, the Information Commissioner of the United Kingdom, John Edwards, made a statement about TikTok and said that the company "should have known better" and "should have done better" about what they were doing.

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"Considering the serious impact their failures may have had, we have imposed a fine of £12.7m. What they failed to do was to do enough to be able to ensure that their platform was only being used by adults. If there were underage children using the platform, they took insufficient action to remove them," he said.

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TikTok's spokesperson told Trade Algo that the company was reviewing the ICO decision, and is thinking about the next steps that need to be taken.

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"TikTok is a platform for users who are 13 or older," a TikTok spokesperson told Trade Algo in response to a question. "Our team of 40,000 highly trained safety professionals works around the clock to make sure that our community is kept safe on the platform for the benefit of everyone. We invest heavily to help keep kids under 13 off the platform."

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“Even though we disagree with the ICO's decision, which relates to the period between May 2018 and July 2020, we are extremely happy that the fine announced today has been reduced to less than half of what was proposed last year,” the spokesperson added.

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In an earlier proposal, the ICO suggested that TikTok be fined £25 million for violating data protection laws. TikTok had been found to be abusing special category data by TikTok, but the regulator decided to lower the fine after striking its initial finding that the app was using special category data unlawfully.

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"The ICO, however, has stressed that this does not mean that social media companies are not concerned about the use of special category data that they gather from their users. It is apparent that we need to be strategic about our resources, and in this case, the Commissioner exercised his discretion by declining to pursue a provisional finding related to the unlawful use of special category data," an ICO spokesperson told Trade Algo via email.

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This penalty came after a number of people called for the app to be banned in the U.S. over security concerns, and after administrations in the U.S., the U.K., as well as several other countries prohibited the app from being installed on government-issued devices.

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Shou Xi, the CEO of TikTok, attended a meeting with U.S. lawmakers last month to address concerns about the site's security and privacy. Washington officials are particularly concerned about the potential influence of the Chinese government over TikTok.

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Since taking over as TikTok's CEO, Xi has denied claims that TikTok's user data was shared with Beijing and has said that, since becoming TikTok's CEO, he has never had any discussions with Chinese officials regarding TikTok's business.

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"The Chinese government has never requested TikTok to share U.S. user data with them, and TikTok has never been asked to share it with them. A request such as this would not be honored by TikTok if such a request were ever made," Xi told the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee in written testimony.