The notice sets out the ICO’s provisional view that TikTok breached UK data protection law between May 2018 and July 2020.
The ICO investigation found the company may have: processed the data of children under the age of 13 without appropriate parental consent; failed to provide proper information to its users in a concise, transparent and easily understood way, and processed special category data, without legal grounds to do so.
Information Commissioner John Edwards explained, “We all want children to be able to learn and experience the digital world, but with proper data privacy protections. Companies providing digital services have a legal duty to put those protections in place, but our provisional view is that TikTok fell short of meeting that requirement.
“I’ve been clear that our work to better protect children online involves working with organisations but will also involve enforcement action where necessary. In addition to this, we are currently looking into how over 50 different online services are conforming with the Children’s Code and have six ongoing investigations looking into companies providing digital services who haven’t, in our initial view, taken their responsibilities around child safety seriously enough.”
TikTok have disputed the findings and noted they are provisional.
The ICO added, “The Commissioner’s findings in the notice are provisional. No conclusion should be drawn at this stage that there has, in fact, been any breach of data protection law or that a financial penalty will ultimately be imposed. We will carefully consider any representations from TikTok before taking a final decision.”
