2026-07-16 11:04:24

TikTok is facing an investigation by UK media regulator Ofcom over concerns that its age verification systems may not be doing enough to prevent children from accessing the platform and harmful content.

The probe comes just a month after the UK government announced plans to ban under-16s from a range of social media platforms, as scrutiny of online child safety continues to intensify.

Ofcom said it will examine how TikTok determines whether a user is a child and whether its systems meet the requirements of the UK’s Online Safety Act. In particular, the regulator is questioning the effectiveness of the platform’s use of “age inference” technology, which estimates a user’s age based on their behaviour, including the videos they watch and interact with.

Speaking to the BBC’s Today programme, Ofcom’s group director for strategy and research, Kate Davies, said: “This is where TikTok comes in. We found that some method of age checks being used by social media are not working well enough.”

She added: “We have very serious questions about whether age inference can be highly effective.”

Under the Protection of Children’s Codes, which came into force in July 2025, online services that host harmful or adult content are required to use “highly effective” age assurance measures to prevent children from accessing inappropriate material.

A TikTok spokesperson said the company was confident it complied with its legal obligations.

The spokesperson said: “We’re confident that we meet our Online Safety Act obligations and will work with Ofcom to demonstrate it.”

TikTok added that it “strictly enforce[s] age-appropriate experiences through expert-informed platform rules and advanced age inference technologies, in line with major industry peers”, and said it had invested “billions” in online safety since launching in the UK eight years ago.

The investigation follows an Ofcom review in May that concluded TikTok was not “safe enough” for children and called for stronger protections.

TikTok is not the only platform using age inference technology. Instagram also combines behavioural signals with other verification methods to identify users who may have misrepresented their age, automatically placing UK users into under-18 experiences until they can be verified as adults.

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