TikTok fined for providing inaccurate information on safety controls

The Office of Communications (Ofcom), the regulator and competition authority for the communications industries in the United Kingdom, has fined TikTok £1.875 million for failing to accurately respond to a formal request for information about its parental controls safety feature.

Last year, Ofcom launched an investigation into the video-sharing platforms to see what safety measures they have in place to protect children from harmful content.

As part of this process, the regulator asked TikTok to provide information about its parental control feature, ‘Family Pairing.’ This feature lets parents link their TikTok accounts to their teens to enable content, privacy, and other well-being settings.

TikTok responded to Ofcom’s request on September 4th, 2023. On December 1st TikTok informed the regulator that the data that was provided was inaccurate. The video platform promised to conduct an investigation to understand what went wrong during the information request.

Ofcom launched its own investigation into the matter to see whether TikTok had failed to comply with its mandatory obligation to provide information.

The British regulator concludes that TikTok has insufficient checks in place to accurately comply with Ofcom’s information request. The video platform was also too slow to bring the error to Ofcom’s attention. TikTok ultimately provided accurate information on ‘Family Pairing’ on March 28th, 2024, more than seven months past the original deadline.

“This delay meant that we were forced, at a late stage, to remove details of the effectiveness of TikTok’s parental controls from the report, materially disrupting our work to promote transparency,” Ofcom states in a press release.

Because of these failings, Ofcom decided to fine TikTok for the amount of £1.875 million, roughly €2.2 million. That includes a 25% reduction for accepting and settling the case.

“Ofcom’s job is to scrutinize platforms’ safety features, and gathering information is a critical part of holding tech firms to account. When we demand data, it must be accurate and submitted on time. We won’t hesitate to take enforcement action if any company fails to do this,” says Ofcom’s Enforcement Director Suzanne Cater.