TikTok is facing a formal investigation in the United Kingdom over how well it protects children, as regulators scrutinise the age checks that are supposed to keep younger users away from harmful material.
The inquiry was opened by Ofcom, the UK's communications regulator, on July 16 under the Online Safety Act, the law that imposes legal duties on online platforms to shield users, and especially children, from dangerous content. Ofcom said it had concerns about whether TikTok's methods for working out a user's age are effective enough to identify children and keep them from seeing material such as content promoting suicide, self-harm or eating disorders.
The question of age
At the centre of the case is "age assurance," the way a platform establishes how old its users are. Rather than demanding formal proof of age, TikTok relies heavily on technology that tries to infer a user's age from their behaviour and activity. Ofcom's worry is that such methods may fail to catch large numbers of under-age users, leaving children exposed to content that adults might be shown.
The investigation will examine whether TikTok's systems and processes do enough to meet the standards the law now requires. Ofcom has said it expects to provide an update on its progress around October.
What is at stake
The Online Safety Act gives the regulator real teeth. Companies found in breach can face fines of up to 10% of their global annual revenue, which for a business the size of TikTok could run to very large sums. Beyond the financial risk, an adverse finding would be a significant reputational blow for a platform whose vast young audience is central to its appeal.
TikTok pushed back on the concerns. A spokesperson said the company was "confident that we meet our Online Safety Act obligations and will work with Ofcom to demonstrate it," adding that it enforces age-appropriate experiences through platform rules and age-inference technology in line with other major services.
A pattern of scrutiny
This is not the first time British regulators have taken aim at TikTok. Ofcom previously fined the company for failing to provide accurate information about its parental-control features, and separately the Information Commissioner's Office, which enforces data-protection law rather than online safety, fined TikTok £12.7 million in 2023 over its handling of children's personal data. That case turned in part on findings that large numbers of under-13s were using the service despite rules meant to exclude them.
The new investigation reflects a wider push by governments to hold social-media companies accountable for the effect of their platforms on young people, an effort that has gathered pace as campaigners and bereaved families have pressed for stronger protections. Child-safety advocates have argued that recommendation systems can still surface harmful material to vulnerable users, and that voluntary measures have not gone far enough.
For now, the case is at an early stage, and no findings have been made. But it sets up an important test of the Online Safety Act, and of how far regulators are willing and able to go in compelling one of the world's most popular apps to change how it deals with its youngest users.
