TikTok could face a £27 million fine after an ICO investigation found that the company may have breached UK data protection law, failing to protect children’s privacy when using the TikTok platform.
The ICO has issued TikTok Inc and TikTok Information Technologies UK Limited with a “notice of intent”. The notice sets out the ICO’s provisional view that TikTok breached UK data protection law between May 2018 and July 2020.
The ICO investigation found that Tiktok may have:
- processed the data of children under the age of 13 without appropriate parental consent,
- failed to provide proper information to its users in a concise, transparent and easily understood way, and
- processed special category data, without legal grounds to do so.
The Commissioner’s findings in the notice are provisional. It says that no conclusion should be drawn at this stage that there has, in fact, been any breach of data protection law or that a financial penalty will ultimately be imposed. It says that it will carefully consider any representations from TikTok before taking a final decision. Tik Tok sat that they disagree with the preliminary views expressed and intend to formally respond to the ICO in due course.
