Italy restricts TikTok due to inadequate enforcement of minimum age

The Italian Garante per la protezione dei dati personali, or the privacy watchdog, instructs TikTok to block all Italian accounts whose age has not yet been verified with certainty. This in response to the death of a ten-year-old girl in the country.

The Italian watchdog says TikTok must immediately block all accounts whose age has not yet been verified with certainty. The minimum age to sit on the platform is thirteen, but according to the watchdog, this requirement is easy to get around. Since December, the privacy watchdog had already started a ‘formal lawsuit’ against TikTok for, among other things, the limited protection of children under thirteen. Research into the platform has been ongoing since March.

The deceased girl presumably participated in the blackout challenge on the platform, which calls on people to suffocate themselves as long as possible and to post that process on TikTok.

The block on unverified accounts will in any case last until February 15th. The Italian privacy watchdog will make further statements by that date. It is unclear how many accounts are involved; the watchdog speaks of ‘all accounts whose user’s age has not been determined with certainty’. Depending on how strict that requirement is, that could be any account in Italy, as the age process now simply involves entering a date of birth.