Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the social media application TikTok and the safeguarding implications for young people of its use.

The government wants the UK to be the safest place in the world to go online. As set out in the Online Harms White Paper the government will take action to tackle content or activity that harms individual users, particularly children. We will establish a new statutory duty of care, overseen by an independent regulator to make companies take more responsibility for the safety of their users and tackle harm caused by content or activity on their services. The regulator will take a risk-based approach, prioritising action where there is the greatest evidence or threat of harm, or where children or other vulnerable users are at risk. Ahead of the implementation of the new regulatory framework, we will continue to encourage companies to take early action to address online harms.

With regards to the social media application TikTok, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has a live investigation on TikTok’s compliance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) relating to the protection of children’s personal data. The GDPR is regulated and enforced by the independent ICO, and as such, the government is unable to comment further on live investigations.