Specifically, it has been the European Union through Ireland that has found faults that they put our minors, ages 13 to 17, at risk.
TikTok and children’s data protection
TikTok, which has 134 million monthly users in the European Union, did not provide child users with enough transparency about what was happening with their data and pushed them towards more privacy intrusive optionssaid the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC). The social network, which is very protective of its own data, has not reported how many of its European users are children.
Another of the major failures found in terms of privacy has to do with the ‘Family Sync’ featurea feature that allows parents and teens to customize their safety settings based on individual needs.
“Since each teen is unique, and parents and guardians are often closer to their teen’s individual needs, the platform incorporates this functionality into the Family Sync tool, to help empower parents and guardians to reduce the likelihood for your teenagers to see content they may find especially jarring”.
The DPC notes that to activate this Family Sync feature, the adult paired with a child’s account cannot be verified as a parent or guardian, and that adult could allow those over 16 to access direct messaging features. .
Fine of 345 million euros
Due to these infringements and the way in which it processes the personal data of children and adolescents, the European Data Protection Council, through the DPC, as the regulator responsible for making TikTok Technology comply with the data protection law of the EU, has imposed million-dollar fine of 345 million eurosthe first to be imposed on the Chinese-owned social media platform.
Following an investigation that began in September 2021, it has been determined that the social network had violated EU data protection rules by setting the profiles of children between 13 and 17 years old by default in a public environment, which means that anyone on or off TikTok could see their content and contact them.
The ByteDance-owned social network said it had changed its policy on most of the issues discussed long before the investigation began and had not yet decided whether it would appeal.
«We respectfully disagree with the decision, in particular with the level of the fine imposed. DPC criticism focuses on features and configurations that were implemented three years ago, and which we made changes long before the investigation beganhow to set all accounts of children under 16 to private by default »said Elaine Fox, TikTok’s director of privacy for Europe, ensuring that the platform “would continue to strengthen the protection of adolescents”.