TikTok is below formal investigation over considerations it has failed to guard youngsters from dangerous content material, the UK’s on-line regulator, Ofcom, has introduced.
The social media platform’s method to checking the ages of customers has sparked “explicit considerations” on the watchdog, virtually a yr after measures to guard youngsters from the worst of on-line content material got here into impact below the On-line Security Act.
Ofcom mentioned TikTok was utilizing a way of inferring youngsters’s ages that will have did not appropriately establish “a big proportion of youngsters”, placing them susceptible to publicity to dangerous content material.
The regulator mentioned it had not reached any conclusions, however that compliance failures could possibly be punished with fines of as much as £18m or 10% of qualifying worldwide income, whichever is larger. Dangerous content material consists of posts about disordered consuming, self-harm, suicide and pornography. Ofcom also can apply to have websites blocked or restricted within the UK in essentially the most critical instances.
Ofcom mentioned: “This investigation will search to determine whether or not there are cheap grounds to imagine that TikTok has failed, or is failing, to adjust to its authorized obligations … together with through the use of age assurance that’s extremely efficient at appropriately figuring out whether or not or not a specific person is a toddler.”
TikTok says it requires customers to enter a date of start after they create an account. “We additionally use know-how that appears at info, usually referred to as ‘alerts’, to examine for indicators that somebody could not meet our minimal age requirement,” it provides.
In the meantime, the UK authorities is getting ready to launch a social media ban for under-16s early subsequent yr, which is able to enhance scrutiny of the strategies tech firms use for verifying customers’ ages.
Ofcom mentioned it additionally had “critical doubts” about different platforms utilizing strategies that infer customers’ ages, from potential indicators resembling a person’s nickname or biography on their person profile, their voice and facial options, and content material seen. It mentioned: “In some instances, tech firms could also be failing to appropriately detect important numbers of youngsters on their platforms, which means youngsters danger being uncovered to dangerous content material.”
The regulator added: “These which use age inference fashions to adjust to their little one safety duties ought to change to different strategies listed in our steering as extremely efficient immediately.”
For instance, Ofcom’s analysis discovered that about one in 10 youngsters aged between 15 and 17 had been nonetheless utilizing the three most-used courting apps in December 2025, regardless of age checks being in place.
TikTok is the third most used website or app by 8- to 14-year-olds within the UK, after YouTube and WhatsApp, in keeping with Ofcom’s research, with youngsters spending a mean of eight hours 45 minutes per week on video-sharing platforms. These embody TikTok, YouTube, Twitch and DailyMotion.
In an announcement, the regulator mentioned: “We strictly implement age-appropriate experiences via expert-informed platform guidelines and superior age inference applied sciences, in step with main trade friends. We’re assured that we meet our On-line Security Act obligations and will work with Ofcom to exhibit this.”
Ofcom additionally mentioned it didn’t permit content material that promoted disordered consuming or confirmed dangerous weight administration behaviours.
In the meantime, it has additionally mentioned youngsters are too simply discovering hyperlinks to pornography websites with no age checks through the use of serps. Ofcom has discovered that one in three outcomes returned on the primary web page of Google Search and 54% on Microsoft-owned Bing despatched customers to such check-free websites.
The regulator mentioned a couple of quarter of the UK’s hottest pornography companies within the UK had no checks in place. Since 25 July final yr, all websites and apps within the UK that permit pornography have been required below the On-line Security Act to have age checks in place to guard youngsters from accessing dangerous content material.
Ofcom mentioned the 2 serps would now be working with the regulator to deal with the discoverability of pornography websites that also didn’t have age checks.
A spokesperson for Google mentioned: “We’re deeply dedicated to defending the protection of younger folks utilizing search within the UK. We robotically lock SafeSearch protections for all customers we all know or infer to be below 18, filtering out specific and grownup content material to make sure a safer expertise.” Microsoft declined to remark.
