UK fines TikTok over safety data reporting

LONDON: British telecommunications regulator Ofcom said Wednesday it had handed video sharing platform TikTok a £1.9 million ($2.4 million) fine for failing to timely make available safety data.

Ofcom criticised the platform, which is owned by Chinese group ByteDance, saying it communicated inaccurate information last year and failed swiftly to address that. “Ofcom has today fined TikTok £1.875 million for failing to accurately respond to a formal request for information about its parental controls safety feature,” the regulator said in a statement.

In a statement to AFP, TikTok recognised it had furnished Ofcom with inaccurate data on the use of a parental controls tool that underestimated “considerably” the number of people using the tool. “We are committed to fully cooperating with all of Ofcom’s requests and have implemented improvements to our internal processes,” a TikTok spokesperson said, adding that Ofcom had recognised the oversight was not deliberate.