European Union slaps TikTok with fine of $369 million over child data breaches

Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok was slapped with a fine of €345 million ($369 million) over child data breaches on Friday (September 15) in the latest salvo of the bloc against the tech titans' business practices.

The fine was decided after the two-year inquiry carried out by Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) culminated.

The Irish watchdog, which has been playing an important role in policy the strict General Data Protection Regulations of the EU, gave three months to TikTok "to bring its processing into compliance" with its rules.

In September 2021, the DPC started examining the compliance of TikTok with GDPR in relation to personal data processing and platform settings for users aged under 18 years old.

It also investigated the verification measures of TikTok for people under the age of 13 and no infringement was found but discovered that the platform failed to properly assess the risks to younger people, who have registered on the service.

In its ruling on Friday (September 15), the regulator highlighted how the accounts of children on TikTok were set to public by default after they signed up, which meant anyone could view or comment on the content they uploaded.

It further criticised the "family pairing" mode of TikTok which has been designed to link the accounts of parents to those of their children, however, the DPC figured out that the company failed to verify the status of the parent or guardian.

Ireland has been at the centre of the GDPR regime because the European headquarters of TikTok as well as Google, Meta and X are in Dublin.

WATCH |Gravitas: Children fall prey to TikTok's 'Egg Crack Challenge'

TikTok says it 'respectfully disagrees'

Responding to the fine imposed, TikTok stated that it "respectfully disagrees" with the verdict and has been "evaluating" how to proceed.

"The DPC's criticisms are focused on features and settings that were in place three years ago, and that we made changes to well before the investigation even began, such as setting all under 16 accounts to private by default," said a TikTok spokesperson, while speaking to AFP.

The platform stated that it has been closely monitoring the age of its users and will take action when needed. TikTok stated around 17 million accounts were deleted worldwide in the first three months of this year because of suspicions that they were created by people under 13 years old.

(With inputs from agencies)