TikTok has abandoned its appeal against a £12.7m penalty imposed by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office, agreeing to pay the fine related to enforcement failures spanning 2018 to 2020. The ICO had determined that the platform did not implement sufficient measures to prevent underage access, with approximately 1.75 million children under 13 in the UK using the service during 2020 despite the company’s stated minimum age requirement of 13.
The regulatory action centered on multiple compliance shortcomings identified by the ICO. Beyond the failure to restrict access to underage users, TikTok neglected to provide adequate transparency regarding data collection and usage practices and failed to obtain parental consent where required. The watchdog stated that the company had done “very little, if anything” to address the underage usage problem.
While TikTok said it disagreed with the finding, the company indicated it would settle the matter given the timeframe involved predates recent policy implementations. The platform noted that it has since deployed “many youth safety measures and policies” following the period covered by the fine. TikTok also withdrew a separate appeal against an ICO information request concerning how its algorithm processes teenagers’ personal data and delivers potentially harmful content, allowing the investigation to proceed.
The resolution occurs as regulatory scrutiny of age-gating mechanisms intensifies across the sector. The UK government is preparing to enforce an under-16 age restriction for social media access effective next year, with communications regulator Ofcom indicating that greater industry effort is necessary to implement functional age verification. Experience from Australia’s similar prohibition, which took effect in December, has demonstrated the difficulty of enforcement, with the eSafety commissioner reporting that a significant share of underage users have retained accounts, created new ones, or circumvented age-verification systems.
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