The European Commission said on Friday that TikTok had failed to adequately protect children’s privacy on its platform, after settings allowed adults to view the accounts of minors.
That failure, the Commission said, left children exposed to cyberbullying, unwanted contact and predatory behaviour. The finding is the latest in a run of actions by Brussels against Big Tech, an area where the EU has taken a leading global role in regulating major firms, including Meta and Apple.
TikTok now has the chance to respond and defend itself against the findings. If the Commission is not satisfied with the Chinese company’s reply, it could issue a formal non-compliance decision along with a possible fine of up to 6 percent of the company’s total annual revenue.
Part of a Longer Investigation
The Commission has been examining TikTok’s compliance with the Digital Services Act, the EU’s sweeping rulebook for online platforms, since February 2024, when the app was designated a Very Large Online Platform under the law.
This is not the first adverse finding to emerge from that inquiry. In February, the Commission concluded that the platform had breached another part of the Act through its “addictive design,” citing features such as autoplay and infinite scroll that it said could harm the physical and mental health of users, particularly minors. TikTok rejected that assessment at the time, calling it “categorically false.”
The company’s troubles extend beyond the Digital Services Act. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission fined TikTok €345 million in 2023 for breaching EU data protection rules by permitting accounts for children under 13 and failing to safeguard their data adequately. The same regulator separately fined the company €530 million over its transfer of European user data to China, a decision upheld by Ireland’s High Court this year.
