TikTok faces huge fine from Britain’s ICO

Lately, the Chinese social media success has been the subject of an investigation by the British data protection watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO): the investigation has so far concluded that the social media network has clearly breached the United Kingdom’s data protection laws, in particular the regulations concerning children’s personal data in the time. The Authority issued therefore a notice of intent, which is a potential precursor to a fine amounting up to a staggering 27 million pounds.

In particular, the Authority found out that the platform could have processed personal data of children under the age of 13 failing to gather the parents’ consent for the processing of these data. Under these data there are allegedly also special category data, which have a special protection under Art. 9 GDPR.

Furthermore, in the ICO’s opinion the principle of transparency was not respected by the Chinese hit platform by not providing complete or transparent information on the data processing or their gathering.

The ICO’s investigation is still ongoing as the Commissioner’s Office is still deciding whether to impose the fine or whether there has been a breach of data protection law.

The protection of teenagers and children is the top priority of the ICO according to current Information Commissioner John Edwards. Under his guidance, the ICO has several ongoing investigations targeting various tech companies who could be breaking the UK’s data protection laws.

This is not the first time TikTok has been under observation by data protection watchdogs. In July a US – Australian cybersecurity firm has found that TikTok gathers excessive amounts of information from their users, and voiced their concern over their findings. Based on these precedents, it could be possible that local data protection authorities will increment their efforts to control TikTok’s compliance with local laws and, in Europe, with the  GDPR.