Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) has slammed a €345 million (around $367 million) fine on TikTok after faulting how the company processes the data of children.
In 2021, the DPC announced an investigation into TikTok’s compliance with Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws. The probe focused on a few TikTok features: default account settings; “Family Pairing” settings; and age verification.
The DPC found that TikTok set children’s accounts to public by default when they signed up on the platform.
The DPC found that children’s TikTok accounts could be linked to profiles that the company hadn’t verified belonged to a parent or guardian. Once linked, the child’s profile settings could be loosened by the adult user to allow DMs.
