Ireland has fined TikTok more than $360 million for failing to protect children’s privacy.
This is the first time TikTok has been convicted under Europe’s toughest data privacy laws.
The Data Protection Commission of Ireland imposed a fine against TikTok.
It should be noted that most of the major technology companies in Europe have opened their headquarters in Ireland.
The Data Protection Commission of Ireland said in a statement that TikTok has been fined $368 million.
The commission’s investigation found that minors’ accounts are made public by default when they sign up to TikTok, allowing anyone to view and comment on their videos.
According to the Commission, this default setting poses a risk to children under the age of 13 who gain access to the platform, even though they are not authorized to do so.
The Irish Commission added that TikTok’s family pairing feature is not strict enough to allow adults to turn on direct messaging without the permission of 16- and 17-year-old users.
The Irish Commission also investigated TikTok’s age-verification measures but found no breach of the law.
On the other hand, Tik Tok issued a statement on the fine and opposed it.
The statement said that the commission criticized the features that were part of the platform three and a half years ago.
According to TikTok, these features were changed before the commission’s investigation began.
It should be noted that the Irish Commission started investigating this matter in September 2021.
The social media company said in its statement that we had made accounts private by default for users under the age of 16, while disabling direct messaging for those between the ages of 13 and 15.
The company said that the features criticized in the commission’s decision are no longer part of the platform, and that we had changed those features several months before the commission’s investigation began.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission is also investigating another case involving TikTok.
The investigation is looking at how well Tik Tok is protecting users’ personal data under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation.
It should be noted that the Irish Commission has fined other technology companies including Meta and its owned services Instagram and WhatsApp over the past year.