TikTok Accused of Violating EU Rules on Online Safety for Children

The European Commission has made the preliminary finding that TikTok breached European Union digital rules by failing to ensure that accounts belonging to minors provide sufficient privacy and safety protections, exposing children to risks such as being contacted by predators.

The commission said on July 24 that TikTok allows minors to make their accounts public, enabling anyone—including people without a TikTok account—to view content posted by children.

Content published by users aged 16 and 17 can also be recommended to other users through TikTok’s “For You” feed, potentially exposing minors to unwanted contact, cyberbullying, and predatory behavior, according to the European Union (EU) executive body.

“This feature potentially gives strangers a window into a child’s life,” the commission said. It added that material posted by minors can remain online indefinitely and potentially follow them into adulthood, a feature that carries risks with “potentially life-long consequences.”

Even when minors make their accounts private, their profiles can still be found through other users’ follower and following lists, while their profile photographs remain visible to anyone, including people who do not use TikTok, the commission said.

Henna Virkkunen, the commission’s executive vice president for tech sovereignty, security, and democracy, said online services should build child protections into their platforms rather than requiring young users to activate them.

“Minors deserve a safe experience from the moment they go online,” Virkkunen said in a statement, adding that the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) requires platforms to have built-in protections for minors and “holds them to account when they fail to do so.”

The DSA establishes a common set of rules for online services operating across the 27-member European Union, including social media networks. It requires platforms accessible to children to provide high levels of privacy and safety, while also banning targeted advertising to minors.

EU Seeks Stronger Safeguards

The commission said TikTok should change the default settings on minors’ public accounts so that their content is visible only to users whom they have accepted.

Although older minors could retain the option of sharing content more broadly on TikTok, their posts should not be accessible outside the platform or recommended to other users through the “For You” feed, it said.

“A high level of protection should not be an opt-in; it should be the default,” Virkkunen said.

The findings are preliminary, and TikTok will be allowed to examine the commission’s investigative documents and respond in writing.

If the findings are confirmed, the commission could issue a noncompliance decision and impose a fine of up to 6 percent of TikTok’s worldwide annual revenue.

TikTok said it would review the findings and work with EU regulators constructively.

“Teen accounts on TikTok have more than 50 preset privacy and safety features, informed by experts, from the moment they set up an account,” the company said.

“Under 18 accounts are private by default and we are one of the only platforms where younger teens cannot use direct messaging or have their content eligible to appear in the For You feed,” the company added.

The latest findings are part of formal proceedings against TikTok launched by EU regulators in February 2024. The investigation has included an analysis of TikTok’s interface, internal data, and documents, as well as interviews with law enforcement officials and experts in child protection, child abuse, and neuropsychology.

The commission in February made a preliminary finding that TikTok’s use of features such as autoplay and infinite scrolling amounted to an addictive design that could harm users’ physical and mental health, particularly that of minors.

Other parts of the investigation—including the risk that TikTok’s recommendation system leads users into so-called rabbit holes and allows children to encounter age-inappropriate material after misrepresenting their age—remain open.

The EU action follows the opening of a separate investigation into TikTok by British communications regulator Ofcom in mid-July.

That inquiry is examining whether TikTok is doing enough to prevent children from encountering harmful material and whether its age-checking system reliably identifies young users.