European Union regulators on Friday fined Chinese-owned social network TikTok €345 million for failing to comply with data protection rules for minors. This is the latest in a series of sanctions against tech giants.
TikTok Technology Limited must pay “administrative fines totaling 345 million euros (approximately $368 million)” and adjust its operations to comply with regulations within three months, the Protection Commission says in a press release. It was announced at
The Irish regulator, which has a central role in ensuring compliance with European Union (EU) standards, will open an investigation into the practices of the social network, a subsidiary of Chinese giant ByteDance, in September 2021. It started on.
TikTok has 134 million users in the EU, and this investigation covers activity between July 31, 2020 and December 31, 2020.
The regulator explained its decision by saying that the registration of minors under the age of 18 on the social network was done in such a way that the account was defined as public by default.
Another problem the agency found was that a TikTok feature called “Family Connection,” which allows teens to link their accounts to their parents’ accounts, did not include proper verification of affiliation.
Regulators analyzed TikTok’s verification procedures to prevent children under 13 from registering and found no violations, but noted that the platform did not adequately assess the risks faced by children.
TikTok’s European headquarters are in Dublin, where Google, Meta and social network X, formerly known as Twitter, also have offices.
In May, the CPD imposed a record fine of €1.2 billion on Meta for transferring EU user data to the US, contrary to a court ruling.
TikTok respectfully disagrees.
TikTok said it “respectfully” opposed the fine and was “considering how to proceed.”
“CPD’s criticisms focus on features and settings that were in place three years ago, including setting all accounts of minors under the age of 16 to private by default,” he said. “We’re focusing on features and settings that were changing long before we started.” A TikTok spokesperson told AFP.
The platform emphasizes that it closely monitors the age of its users and takes the necessary measures, with around 17 million accounts worldwide in the first three months of this year due to suspicion that the user is under the age of 13. He pointed out that it had been deleted.
The Chinese-owned social network announced in early September that it had started hosting European users’ data in Ireland.
Earlier this month, the social media giant opened a data center in Ireland, as it had long promised to allay privacy concerns.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), adopted by the European Union in 2018, is the most stringent law on technology issues and ensures that citizens consent to how their data is used.
Source: Diario.Elmundo
