Chinese social network TikTok has been fined in Britain 12.7 million pounds (14.54 million euros) for “not doing enough” to prevent minors access platforms.

The Office of the Information Commission (ICO) has claimed that TikTok allowed up to 1.4 million children under the age of 13 to use its platform in 2020 after failing to ensure that they had permission from their parents, parents or guardians to access the app, which violate their rights. own terms of service statement.

In addition, TikTok does not verify the identity of these minors remove them from the app despite the warning issued by the company’s own employees.

“We have laws in place to protect the safety of our children in both the digital and physical worlds. TikTok does not comply with these laws”, confirmed the information commissioner, John Edwards. “They are not doing enough to determine who is using their platform,” he has argued.

However, regulators have imposed fines under that 27 million pounds (30.91 million euros) initially claimed, because it decided not to proceed with the investigation into the alleged illegal use of “special categories of data”. This type of data includes information about race, politics, religion, sexual orientation, or biometric data, among others.

For its part, TikTok has rejected the decision, saying it was “weighing the next steps to take.” However, he was “satisfied” after seeing his sentence halved:

“TikTok is a platform for users over the age of 13. We invest heavily to help keep children under 13 of the platform and our security team, made up of 40,000 people, they work around the clock to help keep the platform safe for our community“, TikTok has officially stated.

“Although we do not agree with the ICO decision, referring to the same period from May 2018 – July 2020, we are pleased that the fine announced today has been reduced to less than half of the amount proposed last year. We will continue to review the decision and are considering the next step.”

government veto

This fine follows a ban issued by the UK Government a few weeks ago and which vetoed Chinese government mobile apps due to concerns about cybersecurity, as explained in the House of Commons by the Chief of Staff, Oliver Dowden.

The restrictions to be implemented affect the work mobile devices of civil servants and ministers, but not their personal phones. The veto came after an opinion was issued by experts from the British National Cybersecurity Center regarding data protection. “This is the right decision based on certain risks for government telephones,” Dowden said in the House.

Thus, Executive Rishi Sunak made a 180 degree turn in regards to the position expressed a few weeks earlier by the Secretary for Science, Innovation and Technology, Michelle Donelan, who told the media ‘Politico’ that the United Kingdom would not be joining. for a ban imposed by the European Commission, which forced its employees to uninstall TikTok before March 15th. The Head of Science added that owning the app was a user’s “personal choice”.