Brazil slaps TikTok owner with $38m fine over data use
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Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at an election rally in Rio de Janeiro on Aug 22. He has pushed for stronger online protection for children and teenagers as he seeks a fourth term.
PHOTO: EPA
- Brazil fined TikTok owner ByteDance S$38 million for mishandling children's and teenagers' personal data without proper legal basis or safeguards.
- TikTok must delete improperly collected data and face new restrictions for unregistered users, including suspending ads and limiting features.
- ByteDance agreed to a compliance plan with stricter privacy settings for under-16 users, including parental authorisation and stronger content controls.
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Brazil’s government fined TikTok owner ByteDance 153.7 million reais (S$38 million) over its handling of children’s and teenagers’ personal data, reflecting scrutiny of how online platforms protect minors.
The government’s National Data Protection Authority, known as ANPD, said TikTok processed minors’ personal information without an adequate legal basis and failed to put effective safeguards in place to prevent improper data collection. The decision, which was published in Brazil’s Official Gazette on Aug 25, requires ByteDance to delete data collected improperly.
The company can appeal within 10 business days. TikTok’s press office in Brazil did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has pushed for stronger online protection for children and teenagers as he seeks a fourth term in October’s election. In March, Brazil implemented a law requiring companies and digital platforms to restrict minors’ access to illegal or potentially harmful content. Earlier in August, ANPD ordered chat app Discord to halt live streaming in the South American country after the death of a teenager.
The violations occurred when people used TikTok through registered accounts and also when they accessed a feed without creating an account, according to the Brazilian regulator. ANPD said the company’s technical and organisational measures were not enough to comply with the nation’s data protection law.
TikTok will face additional restrictions in Brazil for people who use the platform without registering. The company must suspend advertising for those users, disable live streams and direct messages and sharply reduce the personal data it collects. Unregistered users will also face time limits on the platform.
ANPD separately approved ByteDance’s compliance plan while requiring the company to follow new age-verification rules under Brazil’s Digital Child and Adolescent Statute. The regulator said the measures are intended to reduce risks to children and teenagers that were identified during its investigation.
ByteDance committed to a compliance plan that will impose TikTok’s most restrictive privacy settings by default on accounts belonging to users under 16, with changes requiring parental authorisation. The platform must also strengthen controls and introduce stricter content filters, regulators said. BLOOMBERG
