The UK Information Commissioner’s Office has accused TikTok owner ByteDance of misusing the children’s data and fined them £12.7million.
While TikTok’s terms of service require a user to be 13 to start posting on the platform, many children (1.4 million in the UK, according to ICO statistics) have been able to circumvent this requirement and have used the application freely.
This means that TikTok used these children’s data without their parents’ consent, which led to the fine. However, given that the TikTok owner reportedly earned around $80bn last year, the £12.7m fine is not going to create such a dent in ByteDance’s overall profits.
Thank you, Guardian.
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