UK Watchdog Wants to Know How TikTok, Reddit and Imgur Deal with Children's Personal Information

The UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has announced that it launched investigations into how TikTok, Reddit and Imgur are trying to protect their child users. 

Social media platforms stipulate that users must be at least 13 years old to create an account, a limit that informs the practices of companies that need to take into consideration what kind of content they serve teenagers. 

The ICO announcement named TikTok, Reddit and Imgur as the targets for three investigations, and the UK watchdog is trying to determine, at least for now, whether data protection legislation has been violated.

Social media companies, beware!

The goal of the investigations is clear. For TikTok, the ICO wants to know how the company makes recommendations.

"Our investigation into TikTok is considering how the platform uses personal information of 13–17-year-olds in the UK to make recommendations to them and deliver suggested content to their feeds," said ICO in a statement.

"This is in light of growing concerns about social media and video sharing platforms using data generated by children's online activity in their recommender systems, which could lead to young people being served inappropriate or harmful content."

Imgur and Reddit are also social platforms, and they're being investigated for similar reasons. In their case, authorities want to know how the platforms use UK children's personal information and how they check age.

For example, these platforms need dedicated tools to help them estimate or verify a child's age, which allows services to be tailored to their needs or access to be restricted.

"In announcing these investigations, we are making it clear to the public what action we are currently taking to ensure children's information rights are upheld. This is a priority area, and we will provide updates about any further action we decide to take" said John Edwards, UK Information Commissioner.

ICO is not messing around

The UK watchdog launched similar investigations in the past, which directly led to modifications in the way some platforms approached these issues.

For example, X stopped serving adverts to users under the age of 18, removed the ability for under-18s to opt into geolocation sharing and much more.

Other examples include Sendit, which has stopped automatically including geolocation information in children's profiles, and BeReal, which has stopped allowing children to post their precise location online.