TikTok, Reddit and Imgur are to be investigated over their use of data from teenage users, amid growing concerns over the potential for children to be served harmful content.
The UK’s data protection watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), said it wanted to look into how TikTok uses the personal information of 13-17-year-olds to deliver content recommendations to them.
The investigations into Reddit and Imgur are focused on how they use children’s personal information and their use of age assurance measures, such as how they estimate or verify a child’s age, which can then be used to tailor their experience on the platform.
The regulator said it was taking the action in light of growing concerns around how social media platforms were using data generated by children’s online activity to power their recommendation algorithms, and the potential for young people to be served inappropriate or harmful content as a result.
The ICO also introduced a children’s code for online privacy in 2021, which requires firms to take steps to protect children’s personal information online.
Information commissioner John Edwards told the PA news agency the regulator expected to find plenty of positive safety elements in place across the sites during its investigation, but wanted to ensure their processes were “robust”.
“It’s what they’re collecting, it’s how they work,” he told PA.
“I will expect to find that there will be many benign and positive uses of children’s data in their recommender systems.
“I would expect to find there will be elements that are designed to keep children safe and to make sure they only get appropriate thing, and that’s all for the good.
“What I am concerned about is whether they are sufficiently robust to prevent children being exposed to harm, either from addictive practices on the device or the platform, or from content that they see, or from other unhealthy practices.”
The ICO said its investigations were to look into whether there had been any infringements of data protection legislation, and if any evidence of potential breaches is found, the regulator said it would put it to the platforms and obtain their representations before reaching a final conclusion.
Mr Edwards said the regulator was “not picking on TikTok” by making it the subject of an investigation on a topic common across social media, and hoped to understand more about the wider social media landscape through the investigation.
“We’ve got to choose one – we can’t spread ourselves too thinly,” he said.
“We’re not picking on TikTok.
“We hope to learn lessons that the whole industry will be able to adopt.”
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