This would be for processing the data of children under the age of 13 without appropriate parental consent.
The Chinese platform TikTok faces a possible fine of about 30 million euros (27 million pounds) in the United Kingdom if it is confirmed that it breached UK data protection law by collecting information about its underage usersreported this Monday the British regulator of the sector.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) reveals in a statement that it has written a letter informing Tiktok Inc and Tiktok Information Technologies Limited of its suspicions and will wait for a response before reaching definitive conclusions.
According to their initial investigation, TikTok may have breached UK data protection law between May 2018 and July 2020.
This would be for processing the data of children under the age of 13 without appropriate parental consent; not providing adequate information to users, concise, transparent and easy to understand, and for processing “special category data” (such as ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs…) without legal basis for it.
“Companies that provide digital services have a legal duty to apply these types of protectionsbut our provisional view is that TikTok did not meet this requirement,” UK Commissioner John Edwards said in the note.
Edwards adds that the Office, which reports to the Ministry of Culture, is currently investigating six other providers who it suspects have also not taken their responsibilities to ensure the safety of children “seriously enough”.
Under UK law, companies that breach UK data protection laws can be fined up to £17.5m (about 20 million euros, at today’s exchange rate) or the equivalent of 4% of its global annual turnover, whichever is higher.