UK opens probe into TikTok's child safety measures

In Britain, the country's communications regulator has initiated an inquiry into whether TikTok complies with British regulations in protecting children from harmful online content.

"The purpose of this investigation is to determine whether there are reasonable grounds to believe that TikTok has failed, or is failing, to meet its legal obligations," the regulator, Ofcom, said in a press release. According to Ofcom, it would focus on TikTok's age verification process.

The TikTok app is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It has stated that it was "confident" in meeting the requirements put forward by Britain's Online Safety Act, passed in 2022 to strengthen regulations for child safety online.

"TikTok strictly enforces age-appropriate experiences using expert-informed platform policies and advanced age inference technologies, in accordance with industry peers," a spokesperson said in a statement.

Kate Davies, director for strategy and research at Ofcom, told BBC Radio that the regulator was concerned about age inference, which involves social media sites determining a user's age based on their internet activity.

"Age inference is not part of our guidelines as a reliable way of checking ages," she said.

The Online Safety Act is designed to stop the exposure of minors to harmful information concerning suicide, self-harm, eating disorders and pornographic content.

Technology companies need to ensure that kids are protected from any misogynistic, violent, hateful or abusive content, cyberbullying and dangerous dares or challenges.

Violations may result in a fine of up to £18 million ($24 million) or 10 percent of annual revenues.

In addition to its announcement regarding the investigation, Ofcom issued a report, pointing out that children can easily access the websites for pornography through search engines, which do not require the use of age verification.

In connection with the discovery, Google Search and Microsoft Bing search engines "will work with us as a priority to develop practical solutions to reduce the discoverability of porn sites without age checks using their services," said the watchdog.

All sites and applications in the UK that carry pornography need to have age verification in order to prevent children from accessing harmful information according to the provisions of the Online Safety Act.