Security News > 2023 > January > TikTok slapped with $5.4 million fine over cookie opt-out feature
France's data protection authority has fined TikTok UK and TikTok Ireland €5,000,000 for making it difficult for users of the platform to refuse cookies and for not sufficiently informing them about their purpose.
The €5 million fine was determined by the severity of the violations, including the number of impacted individuals, which include children, and the number of times CNIL had to repeat its warnings to TikTok on the need to adhere to France's Data Protection Act.
Instead, CNIL says users would have to perform several targeted clicks to refuse all cookies, which was discouraging, naturally leading to most visitors on the TikTok site clicking on the "Accept all" button.
The cookie consent dialogs must offer a balanced approach to how the options are presented to the user, which wasn't the case on TikTok sites.
Despite CNIL's repeated warnings to TikTok, it took the company until February 2022 to implement a "Reject all" button and give it a prominent position in the cookie consent prompt.
"These findings relate to past practices that we addressed last year, including making it easier to reject non-essential cookies and providing additional information about the purposes of certain cookies."