MADRID, April 4th. (EUROPEAN PRESS) –

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

The Office of the Information Commission claims that TikTok allowed up to 1.4 million children under the age of 13 to use its platform in 2020 after failing to ensure they had parental or guardian consent to access the app, in violation of their own terms of service.

Additionally, TikTok does not verify the identities of such minors to remove them from the app despite warnings issued by the company’s own employees.

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

However, regulators have imposed a fine under the 27 million pounds (30.91 million euros) originally claimed for deciding not to proceed with an 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, it was “happy” after seeing the penalty halved.

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 the risks specific to government cellphones,” Dowden said in the House.

Thus, Executive Rishi Sunak turned 180 degrees 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 UK would not be joining. 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”.