TikTok Objects To Fines IDR 5.8 Trillion For Children's Data Protection Violations In Europe

JAKARTA - After a long time, TikTok was finally declared to have violated the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regarding the handling of children's data.

Based on a decision issued by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) recently, the short video sharing platform from China has been reprimanded and fined 345 million euros or around IDR 5.8 trillion.

Launching from TechCrunch, Sunday 17 September, as a whole TikTok was proven to have violated eight GDPR articles, namely: article 5(1)(a), 5(1)(c), 5(1)(p), 24(1), 25(1), 25(2), 12(1), and article 13(1)(e).

In response to the decision, a TikTok spokesperson sent a statement to TechCrunch, who said it disagreed with the decision, especially the magnitude of the fine imposed.

"We respectfully disagree with the decision, especially the magnitude of the fine imposed. The criticism of the DPC focused on the features and arrangements implemented three years ago, and we made changes long before the investigation began, such as arranging all accounts under 16 to be private by default," the statement read.

TikTok also notified that they were considering the next step in connection with the sanctions. So the platform can appeal the law in Ireland.

"We published this in our quarterly Community Guideline Enforcement Report and during the first three months of 2023, we removed nearly 17 million similar accounts globally," the spokesperson added.

According to him, age certainty is a wide industrial challenge. The China-based company also promised to continue to be in a relationship with regulators and other experts to identify new solutions to increase their efforts to keep underage users away from its platforms.