TikTok drops appeal, will pay £12.7m fine over under-13 users on platform

TikTok has dropped its appeal against a £12.7 million fine imposed by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) and will now pay the penalty, after the regulator found the platform failed to do enough to keep children under 13 off the app.

The ICO originally issued the fine in 2023, finding that TikTok had inadequate checks in place to verify the ages of users and had failed to remove accounts belonging to children below the platform's minimum age requirement. Age verification has become an increasingly prominent regulatory concern for social media platforms as authorities scrutinize how effectively companies enforce protections for younger users.

By dropping its legal challenge, TikTok avoids further prolonged litigation over the matter, though the decision confirms the financial penalty and the regulator's findings regarding the platform's past shortcomings in age verification.

The case adds to a broader pattern of regulatory scrutiny facing major social media platforms in the UK and Europe over child safety practices, as governments introduce stricter rules requiring companies to verify user ages and limit exposure of younger users to certain content and features.

TikTok has previously said it has since strengthened its age verification systems, though the fine underscores the consequences platforms can face when regulators determine such systems were insufficient during the period under review.