For violating children’s privacy, Irish regulators fined TikTok €345m (£296m).

It concerned how the social media app handled children’s data in 2020, particularly around age verification and privacy settings.

This is the largest fine TikTok has received from regulators to date.

According to the social media firm’s spokesperson, it “respectfully disagree[s] with the decision, especially the level of the fine.”.

Their criticisms target features and settings that were in place three years ago, and that were changed well before the investigation began, such as setting all accounts under 16 to private.

In accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) issued the fine.

As part of GDPR, companies are required to follow certain rules when handling data.

Children were not sufficiently informed about TikTok’s privacy settings, according to the DPC, and questions were raised regarding how their data was handled.

Helen Dixon, the Data Protection Commissioner, said the inquiry also found that users between the ages of 13 and 17 had their accounts made public by default, which meant anyone could view the content they posted.

This is exactly what TikTok has done, as they designed the platform in a way that infringes the GDPR by default and by design,” Ms Dixon said.

A deadline of three months has been set for the company to comply with GDPR in all aspects of data processing.