TikTok fined for violating children's privacy rules

On September 15, the Data Protection Commission (DPC) of Ireland fined TikTok 345 million Euros for violating privacy protection regulations regarding the processing of children's personal data in European Union (EU) member countries.

Ireland's DPC is the EU's main supervisory authority with the power to criminally prosecute tech companies for breaches of the union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

TikTok bị phạt vì vi phạm quy định bảo vệ quyền riêng tư của trẻ em

This is the first time TikTok has been fined by the Irish DPC. (Source: AFP)

In a statement, the Irish DPC said that the short video sharing platform TikTok of the Chinese company ByteDance had violated a number of EU privacy regulations between July 31, 2020 and December 31, 2020.

According to the agency, in 2020, TikTok accounts of members under the age of 16 were set to public by default, meaning anyone could see their posts.

Additionally, TikTok does not verify accounts that have the "Family Pairing" feature installed - a feature that allows parents or guardians to link their accounts to children's accounts for management and monitoring.

A TikTok spokesperson said the short-form video sharing platform disagrees with the Irish DPC's fine, arguing that the charges are no longer relevant as the company had put in place corrective measures before the Irish DPC's investigation began in September 2021.

TikTok added tighter controls to its "Family Pairing" feature in November 2020 and changed the default setting from public to private for all accounts of users under 16 in January 2021.

This is the first time TikTok has been fined by the Irish DPC. Previously, a number of other technology "giants" were also fined by the Irish DPC for violating GDPR, including Meta - the parent company of social network Facebook with fines of up to 2.5 billion Euros.

As of the end of last year, the agency had launched 22 investigations into multinational companies based in Ireland.

GDPR was enacted by the EU in 2018 to protect users' privacy against unauthorized use of personal data by technology companies operating in the union.

The GDPR applies to organizations within the EU, as well as companies based outside the EU. Companies that violate the GDPR can face fines of up to 4% of their global turnover.

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