TikTok received a record fine of 345 million euros

TikTok was fined 345 million euros for violating privacy laws related to the processing of children's personal data in the European Union.

The Chinese short video platform, which has rapidly gained popularity among teenagers around the world over the years, was found to be in violation of several between July 31, 2020 and December 31, 2020. EU privacy rules, the Irish Data Protection Commission announced in a statement. This is the first time that ByteDance's TikTok has been reprimanded in this way by the DPC (Irish Data Protection Commission), which is the main regulator in the EU for many leading technology companies.

A spokesperson for TikTok said that they disagreed with the decision, particularly with the amount of the penalty, and that the majority of criticism was not the majority. relevant because of the measures they put in place before the investigation started in September 2021.

The DPC said that among TikTok's 2020 breaches, the accounts of users under the age of 16 were set to "public" by default, and that TikTok also failed to verify that the user was actually the parent or guardian of the minor user. , when connected via the “family connection” feature. In November 2020, TikTok added stricter family bonding controls and in January 2021 changed the default setting for all registered users under 16 to “private”.

They said they plan to make further updates to their privacy protocols to make the distinction between public and private accounts clearer. The update is scheduled for next month. The DPC gave TikTok three months to adjust its data processing policies, prioritizing those where serious violations were detected.

The Irish Commission has opened another investigation against TikTok, in which it investigates whether the transfer of data to China is controversial or inconsistent with European legislation. According to the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), introduced in 2018, the main regulator can imposes a penalty of up to 4 % of the company's global revenue on any company.

The DPC has also hit other tech giants with big fines, including a total fine of €2.5 billion for the company Meta (formerly Facebook).