Dublin: Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) has imposed a fine of $36.7 million (108.96 billion Pakistani rupees) on the video sharing application TikTok.
According to international media, this fine was imposed in 2021 by the DPC in the form of an investigation regarding children’s data in the application. (GDPR) saw compliance with laws.
The investigation looked at TikTok’s default account settings, family pairing settings and the age verification feature.
After consultation with the European Data Protection Board, the DPC found that public access to children’s accounts after signing up on TikTok is part of the basic settings, meaning the default settings. Children’s videos can be viewed by ordinary users. Also, the comments, divots and stitch features are turned on by default.
The pairing feature introduced by Tik Tok in 2020 allows linking a child’s account with an adult’s account. Doing so can monitor children’s screen time, direct messages and inappropriate content.
However, the DPC found that children’s accounts could be linked to accounts that the company had not verified were those of their parents or guardians. Once the account is connected, the child’s profile settings can be changed by the parent.
However, in the decision given by the institution, it was stated that TikTok’s age verification method did not conflict with the GDPR rules. According to the agency, the company did not take adequate measures to protect the privacy of children under the age of 13 who created accounts.
It should be noted that earlier DPC had imposed a fine of 400 million dollars on Meta in 2022. Meta was fined for allowing teenagers to create business accounts on Instagram, making their private information public.
