Thursday, March 28, 2024

UK may fine TikTok $29 million for failing to protect children’s privacy

Sept 26 (Reuters) – Britain could fine TikTok 27 million pounds ($28.91 million) following an investigation that found the short-form video app may have breached UK’s data protection law by failing to safeguard privacy of children using the platform.

The investigation found that TikTok could have processed data of children under the age of 13 without appropriate parental consent and failed to provide proper information to its users in a transparent way.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has issued TikTok and TikTok Information Technologies UK Ltd with a “notice of intent”, the regulator said in a statement.

“Companies providing digital services have a legal duty to put those protections in place, but our provisional view is that TikTok fell short of meeting that requirement,” Information Commissioner John Edwards said.

“While we respect the ICO’s role in safeguarding privacy in the UK, we disagree with the preliminary views expressed and intend to formally respond to the ICO in due course,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a emailed statement to Reuters.

ICO’s provisional view suggests that TikTok breached UK data protection law between May 2018 and July 2020.

In July, the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee voted to approve a measure that would raise the age children are given special online privacy protections to 16 and bar targeted advertising to children by companies such as TikTok and Snapchat (SNAP.N) without consent

Suggest an edit to this article

Go to Cybersecurity Knowledge Base

Got to the Latest Cybersecurity News

Go to Cybersecurity Academy

Go to Homepage

Stay informed of the latest Cybersecurity trends, threats and developments. Sign up for our Weekly Cybersecurity Newsletter Today.

Remember, CyberSecurity Starts With You!

  • Globally, 30,000 websites are hacked daily.
  • 64% of companies worldwide have experienced at least one form of a cyber attack.
  • There were 20M breached records in March 2021.
  • In 2020, ransomware cases grew by 150%.
  • Email is responsible for around 94% of all malware.
  • Every 39 seconds, there is a new attack somewhere on the web.
  • An average of around 24,000 malicious mobile apps are blocked daily on the internet.
Bookmark
Close
Recommended:  Analyzing Phishing Attacks that use malicious PDFs
Please login
Share the word, let's increase Cybersecurity Awareness as we know it
- Sponsored -

Sponsored Offer

Unleash the Power of the Cloud: Grab $200 Credit for 60 Days on DigitalOcean!

Digital ocean free 200

Discover more infosec

User Avatar
RiSec.Mitch
Just your average information security researcher from Delaware US.

more infosec reads

Subscribe for weekly updates

explore

more

security