European Union Investigates TikTok for Privacy Violations: Possible Fine by September

TikTok may receive a privacy fine from the European Union by early September at the latest. Insiders report this to Politico. The Irish privacy watchdog is investigating the platform for its processing of children’s and teenagers’ data.

The European Data Protection Board, in which all national privacy regulators within the EU work together, has on Wednesday made a decision in an investigation against TikTok. This means that the Irish privacy regulator DPC may fine TikTok. There was disagreement between the DPC and the German and Italian privacy watchdogs. The DPC is primarily responsible for overseeing TikTok because TikTok’s European headquarters is located in Ireland.

With the decision of the EDPC, the disagreement has been resolved and Ireland may fine TikTok. The DPC now has a month to determine and distribute the final fine and any measures, three insiders say to politics. The amount of the fine and other details are not yet known.

The TikTok investigation revolved around the way the social media platform handles the data of minors. There are rules within the EU about the processing of data from children between the ages of thirteen and seventeen. The Irish regulator wanted to investigate whether TikTok’s default settings are sufficient to ensure children’s privacy. The watchdog also looked at whether TikTok is transparent enough about the processing of children’s data.

TikTok was previously fined by the Dutch Data Protection Authority. In 2021, the AP ruled that TikTok did not protect children’s privacy because the platform did not make its privacy conditions available in Dutch. The platform is also currently under investigation in Ireland for potentially sending user data to China.

TikTok itself announced new measures for European users on Friday. Among other things, the platform allows users in the EU to switch off their personalized For You feed and will no longer show personalized advertisements to minors by default. The company does this because of the approaching Digital Services Act, which was previously adopted by the EU and will soon officially come into force.

2023-08-04 16:46:22
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