TikTok fined $368 million by the EU authorities for violating privacy laws

TikTok was fined 345 million euros ($368 million) by the European Union's main regulator for violating laws on the processing of children's personal data, the first time the popular short video-sharing app has been penalised for violating Europe's tough data privacy rules.

The Chinese-owned short-video platform, which has risen fast among teens throughout the world in recent years, violated a number of EU privacy regulations between July 31, 2020, and December 31, 2020, according to a statement issued by Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) on Friday (17).

The DPC penalized ByteDance-owned TikTok for the first time. The DPC is the principal privacy authority for Big Tech businesses with European headquarters primarily in Dublin.

According to DPC's inquiry, the sign-up process for teen users resulted in default settings that made their accounts public, letting anyone to view and comment on their recordings.