Brazil fines TikTok's parent company $30 million for child data privacy violations

Brazil’s data protection authority has fined TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, nearly $30 million for the alleged mishandling of children and teenagers’ personal data. This action is part of Brazil's ongoing efforts to regulate social media companies. The regulatory body stated that TikTok breached data privacy laws by collecting and processing young users’ personal information without a valid legal basis or adequate safeguards, affecting both logged-in accounts and guest browsing sessions. The regulator estimated that TikTok may have processed the data of at least 8 million children, citing systemic deficiencies in the platform’s age-verification mechanism. TikTok has the option to appeal the decision within the next 10 days. Additionally, the ruling requires TikTok to delete all illegally obtained data and to develop a more comprehensive youth-protection framework. The regulator emphasized that TikTok’s “logged-out feed,” which allows users to browse content without an account, facilitates access for minors while bypassing age-verification checks. This feature is available in Brazil but not in the United States or Europe, where access is limited to registered users. Earlier this month, the regulator also ordered Discord to suspend its livestreaming feature in Brazil, following an incident involving a 13-year-old girl who died by suicide after being encouraged to harm herself during a livestream. Brazil’s government, led by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the Supreme Court have been attempting to regulate internet use by minors, with varying degrees of success, as other countries like Australia, Canada, and Indonesia pursue similar initiatives.