Italy tells TikTok to dam customers after demise of younger woman

The Italian knowledge privateness watchdog ordered video app TikTok on Friday to dam the accounts of any customers in Italy whose age it couldn’t confirm following the demise of a 10-year-old woman who had been utilizing the Chinese-owned app.
In an announcement, the regulator mentioned that though TikTok had dedicated to ban registration for youngsters aged underneath 13, it was nonetheless simple to avoid this rule.
As a end result, it mentioned TikTok needed to block unverified person accounts till not less than February 15 awaiting additional data.
A spokeswoman for TikTok in Italy mentioned the corporate was analyzing the communication obtained from the authority.
“Privacy and safety are absolute priorities for TikTok and we are constantly working to strengthen our policies, our processes and our technologies to protect our community and younger users in particular,” she mentioned in an emailed remark.
Owned by China’s ByteDance, TikTok has been quickly rising in reputation around the globe, notably amongst youngsters.
The ruling got here after a woman died of asphyxiation in Palermo, Sicily, in a case that has shocked Italy.
Her mother and father mentioned she had been taking part in a so-called blackout problem on TikTok, placing a belt round her neck and holding her breath whereas recording herself on her cellphone.
“TikTok was her world. And YouTube. That’s how she spent her time,” the woman’s father Angelo Sicomero was quoted as saying in Saturday’s Corriere della Sera newspaper.
INVESTIGATION
Prosecutors have opened an investigation into doable incitement to suicide and need to see whether or not somebody invited the woman to participate within the problem.
“The watchdog decided to intervene as a matter of urgency following the terrible case of the 10-year-old girl from Palermo,” the authority mentioned.
It mentioned TikTok was banned from “further processing user data for which there is no absolute certainty of age and, consequently, of compliance with the provisions related to the age requirement”.
An official mentioned this meant that customers of unverified accounts would now not be capable of add movies or work together with different folks on the platform.
The watchdog mentioned it had raised issues with TikTok in December over what it referred to as a collection of violations, together with allegations the agency had failed to guard minors.
It added that it had informed the authorities in Ireland about its resolution as a result of TikTok has introduced that it will run its European operations out of Dublin.