The Korean Communications Commission (KCC) decided to fine the Chinese application TikTok with 186 million won (almost $ 155,000) for the illegal collection and transfer of data from minors abroad.
According to the regulator, the application violated the law on the protection of personal information by collecting data from minors without the permission of their guardians.
“In connection with the violation … of the collection of data from users under the age of 14 without the consent of a legal representative, TikTok Pte Ltd is issued a correction order and a fine of 180 million won. The Violation (…) of the obligation to notify about the transfer of information abroad carries an additional fine of 6 million won. A total of 186 million won,” the statement said.
The TikTok social network was launched in 2018 by the Beijing-based company ByteDance. As reported last April by the Sensor Tower application analysis and monitoring platform, the application was downloaded more than 2,000 million times worldwide, including 315 million downloads in the first quarter of this 2020.
According to the WiseApp tracker, last December the app had 3.4 million users in South Korea.
At the end of last June Apple reported that TikTok secretly accesses the clipboard data of its users. Then the application claimed that it was an antispam tool, and assured that it would remove it.
The app is blocked in India. It was also learned that the US is considering restricting the Chinese TikTok application in the country.
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