TikTok fined in UK over child safety data failures

Ofcom, the UK’s telecommunications regulator, has fined social media platform TikTok £1.88m for failing to disclose accurate information about its parental controls.

Ofcom made a standard request for data on the take up of TikTok’s parental controls platform ‘Family Pairing’, which the social media firm supplied in September last year. But TikTok then informed Ofcom in December that the data it provided was not accurate, sparking a further investigation from the regulator.

This uncovered “a number of failings in TikTok’s data governance process”, stated Ofcom. Not only were there insufficient checks in place, leading to an inaccurate data submission, but TikTok was also slow in bringing these errors to light.

Consequently, TikTok fell foul of its duties under the UK’s Communications Act 2003.

The fine was set at £1.88m, based on the size of TikTok and the fact it was well aware of its regulatory obligations, the impact of the data inaccuracies on Ofcom’s work and that it was a first offence.

There was also a 25% reduction of the penalty due to TikTok accepting the findings and settling the case.

“Ofcom’s job is to scrutinise platforms’ safety features, and gathering information is a critical part of holding tech firms to account,” said Suzanne Cater, Ofcom’s enforcement director.

“When we demand data, it must be accurate and submitted on time. We won’t hesitate to take enforcement action if any company fails to do this.”

While this is the first penalty imposed on TikTok by the UK regulator, it has fallen foul of regulators elsewhere.

Ireland’s data protection commissioner fined the video-sharing platform €345m in September for GDPR violations when processing children’s data.

And in March 2024, Italy’s competition regulator fined TikTok €10m for failing to monitor content that threatened child safety.

TikTok’s parent company Bytedance also lost an appeal this month against a ruling from the European Commission that TikTok should be designated as a ‘gatekeeper’ under the Digital Markets Act.