TikTok, the popular video-sharing app, may face a
fine of 27 million pounds, or about $29 million, for failing to protect
children’s privacy in the
UK.
اضافة اعلان
In the first major
case under new British rules protecting minors online, British regulators
Monday sent a warning notice to
TikTok saying the company had handled
youngsters’ information without appropriate permission from their parents,
processed sensitive details without the legal grounds to do so and failed to
explain the platform’s data practices in ways that children could easily
understand.
While the findings
are provisional, the legal document sent to TikTok by Britain’s data protection
agency, the Information Commissioner’s Office, constitutes a formal
notification that regulators intend to impose a fine.
It is not the
first time that the video-sharing app has faced charges of failing to protect
the privacy of younger users. In 2019, Musical.ly, the operators of the
platform now known as TikTok, agreed to pay a fine of $5.7 million to settle
federal charges that it had violated the federal children’s online privacy law
in the US.
The British
announcement comes as the
US government is working to resolve national security
concerns with TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese internet giant ByteDance.
TikTok did not
immediately return an email seeking comment.
The privacy
complaint against TikTok comes one year after Britain instituted sweeping new
online protections for minors, called the Children’s Code.
Those rules
require online services like social networks and video game platforms to design
their products and features with the best interests of children in mind. The
rules also require online services likely to be used by children to turn on the
highest privacy settings for young users and prohibits those services from
tracking children’s precise locations.
In the months
before the Children’s Code took effect in Britain last year, popular social
apps like YouTube, Snap,
TikTok and Instagram announced they were boosting
protections for children.
British regulators
said the TikTok investigation was part of a much wider effort in the United
Kingdom to ensure companies are complying with the new rules.
“We are currently
looking into how over 50 different online services are conforming with the
Children’s Code,” John Edwards, the UK information commissioner, said in a
statement, “and have six ongoing investigations looking into companies
providing digital services who haven’t, in our initial view, taken their
responsibilities around child safety seriously enough.”
Two weeks ago,
California enacted a sweeping new online safety law for minors inspired by the
British effort. The new legislation, which is to take effect in 2024, is called
the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act.
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