TikTok has been hit with a €345 million fine by Ireland for failures in its child privacy procedures.
Irish regulators said that in 2020 the social media giant mishandled children’s data most notably in relation to age verification and privacy settings.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) handed out the fine under the EU's (GDPR) privacy laws, stating TikTok had not been transparent enough with children about its privacy settings and or how their data was processed.
It is the biggest fine to date TikTok has received from any regulators.
TikTok replied that it disagreed with the decision, particularly the level of the fine imposed.
"The criticisms are focused on features and settings that were in place three years ago, and that we made changes to well before the investigation even began".
Accounts for children up to age 15 are now being private by default, it said, something soon to be extended to 16 and 17-year-olds.
European regulators are also investigating whether TikTok, which is owned by Chinese firm Bytedance, illegally transferred data from the EU to China.
Fines for data misuse have been rising recently as regulators globally have cracked down on firms using data without permission or for dubious purposes.
Earlier this year, TikTok was fined £12.7m in the UK for allowing children aged under 13 to use the platform in 2020.
Facebook owner Meta received a €1.2bn (£1bn) fine in May for transferring data from Europe to the US.