The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), the Irish equivalent of the CNIL, announces in a press release that it has imposed a fine of 345 million euros on TikTok for its mismanagement of the data of children registered on its platform. The social network said it “respectfully disagrees” with its decision.
The West is definitely after TikTok. When it is not the United States which is considering banning the application from its soil, the European Union imposes fine after fine. It is the turn of the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) to continue the tradition. In a press release, the equivalent of the CNIL, generally very supportive of the application of the GDPR, announces that it has sentenced the Chinese application to a fine of 345 million euros.
The DPC criticizes the social network for insufficient protection of children, particularly with regard to their personal data. This is not the first time that TikTok has been singled out on this subject: last April, the British authority also imposed a fine of 14.5 million euros for the same reason. This time, Ireland wanted to strike harder, in response to multiple breaches of European regulations.
TikTok receives a heavy fine for poor child protection
Among other things, the DPC criticizes TikTok for automatically configuring profiles created by minors when registering in public – a defect since corrected by the application since the DPC investigation, which took place in 2021. In addition, the DPC functionality allowing a child’s account to be linked with that of an adult is useless according to the DPC, since TikTok does not verify that there is indeed an adult behind the associated account. Result: the traditional ban on access to children under 13 is rarely respected.
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In response, TikTok said “respectfully disagree with the decision, in particular the level of the fine imposed”. “Criticism of the DPC focuses on features and settings that were in place three years ago, and which we have changed,” adds a spokesperson to AFP. TikTok also highlights having deleted 17 million accounts belonging to children under 13, in just 3 months this year.
Source: DPC