London:
The UK regulator has fined Chinese video-sharing platform TikTok nearly $16 million for a number of breaches of “data protection laws,” including misusing children’s personal data, according to DailyExpertNews.
The UK Information Commissioner’s office fined TikTok $15.9 million and estimated that the video-sharing platform would allow more than 1 million children under the age of 13 to use its platform by 2020 in violation of its own rules .
On Tuesday, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) stated that the video-sharing platform had not done enough to see who, at what age, the public has access to their platform. TikTok also took no action to remove underage children and had failed to provide users with proper information about how their data was collected and used. The fine applies to rule violations between May 2018 and July 2020.
“There are laws to ensure your children are as safe in the digital world as they are in the physical world. TikTok did not abide by those laws,” said John Edwards, the UK’s Information Commissioner.
He added, “TikTok should have known better. TikTok should have done better.”
A spokesperson for TikTok told DailyExpertNews that the company is “investing[s] heavy to help keep the platform under 13” and that it disagreed with the ICO’s decision.
Our 40,000 strong security team works around the clock to keep the platform safe for our community.
The fine comes as a series of Western countries turn their backs on the Chinese video streaming platform.
Previously, Australia, France, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and India, in a very first phase, banned the TikTok app from all devices with access to the country’s parliament at the end of March.
Australia will ban the use of TikTok on government devices “as soon as possible,” the country’s attorney general announced earlier on Tuesday, citing security concerns, according to DailyExpertNews.