UK regulator Ofcom is investigating TikTok after raising “serious doubts” about the effectiveness of its ability to determine when a person is under 18.
On the same day it published its first age-assurance report and coming just months before TikTok banned children and teens, Ofcom said it had evidence to suggest that “TikTok’s age inference methods may be failing to correctly detect large numbers of children, putting them at risk of being exposed to harmful content.”
Ofcom has criticized the Chinese-owned social media platform’s “age inference” approach to identifying under-18s. The method involves analyzing a user’s activity and behavior to estimate whether they are a child or an adult, but Ofcom said it is “not included in our industry guidance as a method capable of being highly effective for this purpose”.
Ofcom is now investigating TikTok under a new online safety law, which challenges social media platforms that fail to block harmful content and forces them to use effective age verification processes. Ofcom also investigated X using the same powers given to its Grok AI imagery tool.
If TikTok is found to have been in breach, the company could be fined up to £18 million ($24.3 million) or 10% of its qualifying global revenue.
The news comes just a few months before TikTok and other social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and YouTube are banned in the UK for children under 16, with Britain becoming the second country after Australia to introduce the measure. 16-18 year olds will also be subject to a social media curfew, while the government also aims to stop addictive features such as autoplay and infinite scrolling.
After proposing the ban last month, a TikTok spokesperson said it “shares the government’s goal of providing safe online experiences for teens, which is why teen accounts on TikTok have over 50 safety and privacy presets.”
We have contacted TikTok for comment on Ofcom’s investigation.
Ofcom’s Age Assurance report found “significant progress” in the first few months of the online safety law, with the proportion of children subject to highly effective age checks almost doubling.
