Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced a €345 million ($370 million) fine against TikTok on September 15, saying that the company had breached privacy laws regarding children’s personal data in the European Union, Reuters reported. The DPC said that TikTok users’ accounts were set as “public” by default, which allowed everyone to access their posts and thus brought various risks to users under 13 years old. Additionally, TikTok did not verify whether the user linked to a child’s account through the “family pairing” feature was actually the child’s parent or guardian, according to the DPC. In November 2020, TikTok implemented enhanced parental controls for family pairing, and by January 2021, the short video platform modified the default setting to “private” for all registered users under the age of 16, the report said. A TikTok spokesperson expressed the company’s disappointment with the ruling, particularly with the size of the penalty, saying many of the allegations raised were no longer applicable as TikTok had implemented measures before the DPC initiated its investigation in September 2021. The DPC has granted TikTok three months to rectify any compliance issues identified in their processes, according to Reuters. [Reuters]
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