TikTok fined €345m by EU

TikTok has been hit with a €345 million EU fine over the way it processed the personal data of children and teenaged users, the first handed out by the bloc to the Chinese-owned social media platform, reports the Financial Times. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, the regulator responsible for holding TikTok Technology to EU data protection law, announced the fine on Friday after an investigation that began in September 2021.

The DPC’s probe found TikTok had infringed EU data protection rules by setting the profiles of children aged 13-17 to default to a public setting, meaning anyone on or off TikTok could view their content and contact them.

TikTok, which set up an office in Ireland in 2020 and this month opened a long-planned site in Dublin to store EU citizens’ data, was investigated by the DPC over its compliance during the period July 31 2020 to December 31 2020.