The UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has fined the video service TikTok £12.7 million ($16 million) for breaches in the storage and processing of underage users' data.

According to the ICO, in 2020 TikTok has allowed around 1.4 million children under the age of 13 to use its platform in the UK, in defiance of its own rules, which state that people under the age of 16 are not allowed to create an account.

Additionally, the UK data protection law requires organizations that process the personal data of users under 13 to obtain the consent of their parents or guardians, which TikTok did not do. The company also failed to conduct proper checks to identify and remove minors from its platform.

According to the BBC, John Edwards, head of the ICO, said there are laws in place in the country to make sure children are as safe in the digital world as they are in the physical world, but TikTok did not comply with those laws.

"As a consequence, an estimated one million under-13s were inappropriately granted access to the platform, with TikTok collecting and using their personal data. TikTok should have known better. TikTok should have done better. Our £12.7m fine reflects the serious impact their failures may have had," he said.

John Edwards also said that TikTok did not take steps to obtain consent from the parents of minors. According to him, if children watch content that is not appropriate for their age, “it can be quite harmful because they are not old enough to fully appreciate the implications and to make appropriate choices”.

The ICO originally planned to impose a much larger fine of 27 million pounds ($33.7 million), but after reviewing documents provided by TikTok, the British regulator concluded that the service did not use minors' data for illegal purposes, and reduced the amount of the fine.

TikTok is allowed to appeal against the scale of the fine and has 28 days to make representations. If successful, the ICO could reduce the final amount.

The regulator has a maximum of 16 weeks, from issuing the notice of a proposed fine to delivering its final verdict.