The company has been penalized a whopping 1.87M British Pounds for the act which includes delays in making the reports that led to a further delay in the publishing of Ofcom’s transparency report linked to child safety.
The report was designed to give parents greater insights into which platforms are the safest for their children to use. As a part of this particular study, we saw Ofcom request TikTok, Snap, and a few other platforms for answers regarding how minors are protected on the app from gaining access to content that’s not suitable for their age.
This includes a long list of explicitly themed videos on TikTok as well as what the app was doing in terms of the Family Pairing offering that helps parents gain more control of young users' actions.
For those who might not be aware, the UK’s Communication Act forces companies working online to give out clear-cut and quick responses in terms of what it’s doing to comply with the law and ensure young users are up to date with the most comprehensive and timely data.
Ofcom has long been famous for scrutinizing apps and their respective security features that gather data. It’s a crucial way of holding them accountable for the daily workings of the app and also to ensure young users remain safe at all times.
They added more details on how getting data from apps like TikTok is part of the law and therefore when requests are generated, the response must be rolled out promptly. Those who fail to comply would be penalized and in this case, it’s TikTok.
What is interesting is that when Ofcom requested TikTok’s data, it was submitted by the app in September of last year. But after doing so, the company went back on its own claims, adding how the data that it sent was not accurate. Therefore, it was rolling out an internal investigation on this front to better understand the cause of this problem and why TikTok’s reportings were full of inaccuracies.
Ofcom mentioned through another investigation that TikTok failed in other areas too like governance processes. There were not enough checks being carried out on the app and any errors that may have taken place were not brought to the attention of the regulator. This further led to substantial delays in finding the right solution on this front.
Ofcom issued a direct response in terms of how TikTok’s delay resulted in them getting rid of details on how the app’s parental controls were so effective and that led to a great disruption of work on their part and limited transparency. Additionally, the app was not up to the mark in terms of giving progress updates.
While TikTok did end up giving the right data this year in March, it was more than seven months later than what the real deadline should have been. What is interesting is how the fine presented to TikTok is 25% less than what was originally planned because the app did admit to its wrongdoing and hence wished to settle the case in the end.
A rep for TikTok adds that Ofcom is well aware that TikTok did not intentionally carry out a breach and there was deliberation or reckless behavior involved. It did behave proactively in terms of admitting that it made an error and therefore was more than welcome to accept solutions that could prevent such instances from taking place again.
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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World
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