The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office, which oversees data privacy regulation in the UK, has announced an investigation into how TikTok utilises personal data gathered from users who are under eighteen. It will also review how Reddit and image-sharing site Imgur assess the age of their users as part of wider work to “ensure companies are designing digital services that protect children”.
Announcing the investigation, Information Commissioner John Edwards says, “If social media and video sharing platforms want to benefit from operating in the UK they must comply with data protection law. The responsibility to keep children safe online lies firmly at the door of the companies offering these services and my office is steadfast in its commitment to hold them to account”.
The investigation comes as the impact of social media on young people is rising up the political agenda around the world, with many countries watching with interest new laws in Australia that will ban children under sixteen from using social platforms. Any new regulations impacting on how children use social media is obviously important to those in the music industry promoting music to younger consumers.
Expanding on what the investigation will look into, the ICO says it is considering how TikTok “uses personal information of thirteen to seventeen year olds in the UK to make recommendations to them and deliver suggested content to their feeds”.
“This is in light”, it goes on, “of growing concerns about social media and video sharing platforms using data generated by children’s online activity in their recommender systems, which could lead to young people being served inappropriate or harmful content”.
The focus on Reddit and Imgur, it adds, will consider “how the platforms use UK children’s personal information” as well as “their use of age assurance measures”, because “age assurance plays an important role in keeping children, and their personal information, safe online”.
A key aim of the investigation into the three platforms is to ascertain “whether there have been any infringements of data protection legislation”. If there is sufficient evidence that the law has been broken, the ICO adds, that evidence will be shared with the relevant platform and their “representations” will be then considered before it reaches any final conclusions.
In an interview with the PA, Edwards was keen to stress that he expects the investigation into TikTok to find some positives, including “positive uses of children’s data” and “elements that are designed to keep children safe”.
However, he adds, the ICO wants to know whether TikTok has systems in place that are “sufficiently robust to prevent children being exposed to harm, either from addictive practices on the device or the platform, or from content that they see, or from other unhealthy practices”.
TikTok has been selected for scrutiny, he explains, based on the “direction of growth” in relation to the social media market and especially the youth demographic. However, he adds, it’s “the underlying technology” that interests the ICO, and “that’s present in X, it’s present in Reels, it’s present in Snapchat, it’s there across the board on digital platforms”.