Action by regulator follows £12.7m fine by UK for illegally processing data of 1.4m children under 13

TikTok to be fined for breaching children’s privacy in EU::Action by regulator follows £12.7m fine by UK for illegally processing data of 1.4m children under 13

    • mestari@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      The illegal activity in question is not implementing stricter measures of preventing under 13 year olds of using the service without a parent’s consent. I really wonder how it’s possible to verify a kid’s parent’s consent in the first place. I guess Facebook and others manage to do that but I have no idea how.

      • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.worldEnglish
        91·
        1 year ago

        I guess Facebook and others manage to do that but I have no idea how.

        No. They just managed not to get sued properly (so far).

      • skizzles@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        You are right, it’s really not cut and dry in today’s age.

        Could be something like the way I have my son’s tablet setup. If he tries to install something, I get a notification to approve it on my phone.

        I can disable or enable the device at any point and have active times setup on it so it automatically does that if I’m not manually managing it.

        BUT, that requires the parent to be actively engaging in what their kids are doing while trying to not be helicopters over them. You can setup home networks to block stuff like that also, but that requires some technical knowledge that a lot of people may not want to deal with. Also, that has no bearing on what is done outside of the home.

        Also the age of the kid is a huge factor, a 13 year old is going to have a higher ability to get around those restrictions.

        So now we’re at the point of basically saying, there’s not a really good defined way of doing that. However, if we ask for a copy of your ID, that’s adds a decent protective layer. BUUUT, that’s going to throw up red flags to everyone who wants to protect themselves and doesn’t want their info out there like that. Which we all know there are data breaches and bad actors out there (like Tesla employees sharing videos from people’s cars) so it’s reasonable to not want to provide stuff like that.

        Now at this point we’re kinda back to square one what can be done to manage this, be secure, and appease both sides of the table?

        • mestari@lemmy.worldEnglish
          22·
          1 year ago

          Yep, I also think that a sizable portion, even most 12 year olds are more tech savvy than their guardians. It makes no sense trying to keep under 13 year olds from using services like tiktok. The laws requiring parental consent are good willing but don’t serve their purpose like intended. We should just focus on making mass media safe for children.

  • sk1nnyjeans@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    1 year ago

    My understanding is that you have to state your age is at least 13 years of age to create a tiktok account, meaning these kids were lying about their age to create an account… right?

    I’m not defending tiktok, but am also confused how this aspect or the “lack of parental consent”mentioned in the article ends up being TikTok’s responsibility.

    I did read the article, I’m just confused about those aspects.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    71·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    TikTok is to be fined potentially millions of pounds for breaching children’s privacy after a ruling by EU data protection regulator.

    The regulator had “adopted a dispute resolution decision” after Tiktok submitted legal objections to an earlier ruling in Ireland, home of the company’s European headquarters.

    After TikTok agreed to a voluntary “stress test” in its Dublin HQ last month, the EU technology commissioner, Thierry Breton, said the company needed to do more work to be fully compliant.

    On Friday, the company said new measures it had taken to comply with the DSA included: making it easier for EU users to report illegal content; allowing them to turn off personalised recommendations for videos; and removing targeted advertising for users aged 13 to 17.

    The British information commissioner said the company had done “very little, if anything” to check who was using the platform and remove underage users, despite having received internal warnings that it was flouting its own terms and conditions.

    A 2022 survey by the UK regulator Ofcom showed that more than 60% of eight- to 17-year-olds who use social media had a TikTok account in their own name.

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