TikTok could face a £27 million fine following an investigation by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) which found the company may have breached UK data protection law.

Alleging the video platform failed to protect children’s privacy when using its app, the ICO has issued TikTok Inc and TikTok Information Technologies UK with a ‘notice of intent’ - a legal document that precedes a potential fine.

The notice sets out the ICO’s provisional view that TikTok breached UK data protection law between May 2018 and July 2020.

The ICO claims that TikTok processed the data of children under the age of 13 without appropriate parental consent.

It also alleges that the platform failed to provide proper information to its users in a concise, transparent, and easily understood way and said that the company processed special category data without legal grounds to do so.

“We all want children to be able to learn and experience the digital world, but with proper data privacy protections,” said John Edwards, information commissioner. “Companies providing digital services have a legal duty to put those protections in place, but our provisional view is that TikTok fell short of meeting that requirement.”

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