Fine in the amount of 5 million euros applied by the French Data Protection Authority to social network TIKTOK for the illegally processing of personal data

The National Center for Personal Data Protection (NCPDP), for information and application purposes, communicates about the fine in the amount of 5 million euros applied by the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) to social network TIKTOK for the illegally processing of personal data.

Between May 2020 and June 2022, the CNIL carried out several online investigations on the “tiktok.com” website in an unlogged session, and not on the mobile application. Following the investigations, it was found that although the companies TIKTOK UK and TIKTOK IRELAND did offer a button allowing immediate acceptance of cookies, they did not put in place an equivalent solution to allow the Internet user to refuse their deposit as easily.

On the basis of the findings, the CNIL concluded that TIKTOK INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES UK LIMITED (TIKTOK UK) and TIKTOK TECHNOLOGY LIMITED (TIKTOK IRELAND) had failed to comply with the obligations set out in Article 82 of the French Data Protection Act, this process infringed the freedom of consent of Internet users and users were not informed in a sufficiently precise manner of the purposes of the cookies, either on the first-level information banner or in the context of the choice interface accessible after clicking on a link in the banner.

In this context, the CNIL applied a fine of 5 million euros to the social network TIKTOK. The amount of this fine was decided on the basis of the breaches identified, the number of people concerned – including minors – and the numerous previous communications from the CNIL on the fact that it must be as simple to refuse cookies as to accept them.

The NCPDP, as national supervisory authority for personal data processing, emphasizes the responsibility of personal data controllers to comply with the provisions of legal framework on personal data protection and to ensure that personal data processing operations are in accordance with the legislation in force.