TikTok is to be investigated by the UK’s data protection watchdog, which is looking into whether social media algorithms are serving up inappropriate or harmful content to children.
Growing concerns over how social media platforms are using data generated by children’s online activity have prompted the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to launch an investigation into the Chinese platform, along with the forum site Reddit and the image-sharing site Imgur.
It will look at how TikTok uses the personal information of 13- to 17-year-olds to deliver content recommendations to them, and also examine Reddit and Imgur’s use of age assurance measures, such as how they estimate or verify a child’s age, which can then be used to tailor their experience on the platform.
Earlier this year TikTok was made subject to a ban in the US, suspended for 45 days by Donald Trump, due to concerns that the Chinese government could access data gathered by the app, which is owned by the Chinese social media and games company ByteDance.
In January the UK technology minister, Peter Kyle, told the Guardian: “I am genuinely concerned about the ownership model of TikTok. I’m genuinely concerned about their use of data, linked to the ownership model.”
The ICO introduced a children’s code for online privacy in 2021, which requires companies to take steps to protect children’s personal information online.
The information commissioner, John Edwards, told the PA news agency that the regulator expected to find plenty of positive safety elements in place across the sites during its investigation, but wanted to ensure their processes were robust.
“It’s what they’re collecting, it’s how they work,” he told PA. “I will expect to find that there will be many benign and positive uses of children’s data in their recommender systems. I would expect to find there will be elements that are designed to keep children safe and to make sure they only get appropriate things, and that’s all for the good.
“What I am concerned about is whether they are sufficiently robust to prevent children being exposed to harm, either from addictive practices on the device or the platform, or from content that they see, or from other unhealthy practices.”
The ICO said its investigations would look into whether there had been any infringements of data protection legislation. If any evidence of potential breaches is found, the regulator said it would put it to the platforms and obtain their representations before reaching a final conclusion.
Edwards said the regulator was “not picking on TikTok” by making it the subject of an investigation on a topic common across social media, and hoped to understand more about the wider social media landscape through the investigation.
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“We’ve got to choose one – we can’t spread ourselves too thinly,” he said. “The selection was made based on the direction of growth travel in relation to young users, market dominance and potential for harm.
“But the underlying technology is what’s interesting to us, and that’s present in X, it’s present in [Instagram’s] Reels, it’s present in Snapchat, it’s there across the board on digital platforms. Now they’re all competing for attention and eyeballs, and so they’re using techniques to maximise those.”
TikTok has been contacted for comment.
