A “major investigation” has been launched into Chinese social media site TikTok amid fresh claims it is profiting from the live streaming of sexual content featuring underage children. The UK data watchdog announced a probe into how the site uses children’s personal information and what safeguarding measures it has in place to prevent online abuse.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) will inspect the way in which the social media platform uses the data of 13 to 17-year-olds to recommend further content to them. John Edwards, the Information Commissioner, said it would look at whether TikTok’s data collection practices could lead to children experiencing harms, such as data being leaked or spending “more time than is healthy” on the platform. TikTok insists recommender systems operated under “strict and comprehensive measures that protect the privacy and safety of teens” and added that it has “robust restrictions on the content allowed in teens’ feeds”.
But Mr Edwards said TikTok’s algorithm “feeds” on personal data gleaned from user profiles, preferences, links clicked and how long they spend watching a particular video – making it subject to UK rules.
It is not the first time TikTok has faced scrutiny from the ICO. The platform is appealing against an ICO fine of £12.7m in 2023 for misusing children’s data issued in 2023.
The new intervention comes as the BBC claimed TikTok is profiting from sexual livestreams performed by teens as young as 15.
The corporation claims to have spoken to three women in Kenya who said they began this activity as teenagers and used TikTok to openly advertise and negotiate payment for more explicit content that would be sent via other messaging platforms.
TikTok bans solicitation but the company knows it takes place, moderators told the BBC.
TikTok is believed to take a cut of around 70% from all livestream transactions and although it bans solicitation and claims to have a “zero tolerance for exploitation” policy, moderators told the BBC that the company is aware of the practice.
There are further claims from the US that TikTok has previously been aware of child exploitation in its livestreams – having run its own internal investigation in 2022 – but allegedly ignored the issue because it “profited significantly” from them, according to the claims of a lawsuit brought by the state of Utah last year.
TikTok responded that the lawsuit – which is ongoing – ignored the “proactive measures” it had made to improve safety.
In addition to the probe into TikTok, the ICO is also checking the age verification processes of Reddit and Imgur, an image-sharing platform.
The investigation will look into whether the companies are complying with both the UK’s data protection laws, and the children’s code.
The code is set to design principles for online platforms aimed at protecting children in the UK. Platforms which collect UK children’s user data must minimise the amount they gather and take extra care when processing it.
The ICO’s investigations into Reddit and Imgur will focus on how the platforms check the ages of their users and their enforcement of age checks.
Ofcom said in October Reddit had overtaken X as the UK’s fifth most popular platform.
Imgur claims to reach more than 250 million people a month but there is no verified figure for UK users.
A Reddit spokesperson said that 95% of their users are adults but revealed they “have plans to roll out changes this year that address updates to UK regulations around age assurance”.
