The regulators of Ireland issued a fine of €345m (£296m) to TikTok for breaching the privacy of minors.
The grievance revolved around the way the social media app dealt with the data of minors in 2020, with particular focus on age confirmation and privacy settings.
TikTok has been hit with the largest penalty to date from regulators.
A spokesperson for the social media firm indicated that they are not in agreement with the decision, especially the magnitude of the fine imposed.
They stated that the critiques were centered on characteristics and configurations that had been in effect three years ago, and that modifications had occurred well before the inquiry started, such as requiring that all accounts owned by those under 16 be set to private by default.
Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) imposed a fine in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy law of the European Union.
According to GDPR, businesses have to adhere to certain regulations when dealing with data.
The DPC investigated TikTok's level of transparency with regards to privacy settings for children and expressed concerns about the handling of their data.
Helen Dixon, the Data Protection Commissioner, informed BBC News that the investigation revealed that accounts created by users aged 13-17 were automatically made public after they were registered, so any content posted was visible to all.
Ms Dixon declared that the data protection laws had been violated by the manner in which TikTok designed their platform, in accordance with the GDPR.
The firm has been granted a three-month period to bring its data processing into full compliance with GDPR.
Prof. Sonia Livingstone, a researcher into the digital rights and experiences of children from the London School of Economics and Political Science, congratulated the DPC on their decision.
Kids wish for the ability to be online without being exploited or controlled. It's therefore key for platforms to inform them of their data treatment, and also guarantee that the data will be treated equitably, as privacy is an entitlement of minors.
An inquiry is being conducted to determine whether data from the EU has been unlawfully moved to China by TikTok, which is held by a Beijing-based company, ByteDance.
Although the penalty is in the hundreds of millions, it pales in comparison to other fines received lately - like the €1.2bn (£1bn) sanction imposed by the regulatory body upon Meta for its mismanagement of client data when transferring it from Europe to the U.S. in May.
The UK data regulator imposed a penalty of £12.7m on TikTok in April for permitting minors aged below 13 to utilize the platform in 2020, and it is significantly bigger than that.
The DPC's fine was specific to the year 2020 and then afterwards, TikTok took various steps to make it more compliant.
The inclusion of this feature in January 2021 made it one of the earliest social media sites to establish private profiles for users aged 13 to 15 by default.
This month will bring about an alteration in which all users aged 16 and 17 who join the platform will automatically have their accounts set to private.
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