{"id":217070,"date":"2026-02-24T17:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T22:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/24\/reddit-fined-nearly-20-million-by-uk-online-privacy-regulator-for-using-childrens-data-unlawfully-potentially-exposing-them-to-inappropriate-and-harmful-content\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T17:55:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T22:55:25","slug":"reddit-fined-nearly-20-million-by-uk-online-privacy-regulator-for-using-childrens-data-unlawfully-potentially-exposing-them-to-inappropriate-and-harmful-content","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/24\/reddit-fined-nearly-20-million-by-uk-online-privacy-regulator-for-using-childrens-data-unlawfully-potentially-exposing-them-to-inappropriate-and-harmful-content\/","title":{"rendered":"Reddit fined nearly $20 million by UK online privacy regulator for ‘using children\u2019s data unlawfully, potentially exposing them to inappropriate and harmful content’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reddit fined nearly $20 million by UK online privacy regulator for ‘using children\u2019s data unlawfully, potentially exposing them to inappropriate and harmful content’<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/games\/reddit-fined-nearly-usd20-million-by-uk-online-privacy-regulator-for-using-childrens-data-unlawfully-potentially-exposing-them-to-inappropriate-and-harmful-content\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-02-24 17:15:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.pcgamer.com<\/a><\/p>\n

The Information Commissioner’s Office, a regulatory body charged with regulating and enforcing online privacy matters in the UK, has fined Reddit \u00a314.5 million ($19.6 million) after an investigation found that the platform had “failed to apply any robust age assurance mechanism and therefore did not have a lawful basis for processing the personal information of children under the age of 13.” Reddit says it will appeal the ruling.<\/p>\n

Reddit “failed to carry out a data protection impact assessment (DPIA) to assess and mitigate risks to children before January 2025,” ICO said in a press release (via Ars Technica). “These failures meant Reddit was using children\u2019s data unlawfully, potentially exposing them to inappropriate and harmful content.”<\/p>\n

Reddit introduced “age assurance measures” in July 2025 “that include age verification to access mature content and asking users to declare their age when opening an account,” the ICO continued, but that may not be adequate: “The ICO informed Reddit that relying on self-declaration presents risks to children as it is easy to bypass. The regulator is keeping Reddit\u2019s processing of children\u2019s personal information under review as part of on-going work focusing on online platforms that primarily rely on self-declaration.”<\/p>\n


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“It’s concerning that a company the size of Reddit failed in its legal duty to protect the personal information of UK children,” UK Information Commissioner John Edwards said. “\u201cChildren under 13 had their personal information collected and used in ways they could not understand, consent to or control. That left them potentially exposed to content they should not have seen. This is unacceptable and has resulted in today\u2019s fine.<\/p>\n

“Let me be clear. Companies operating online services likely to be accessed by children have a responsibility to protect those children by ensuring they\u2019re not exposed to risks through the way their data is used. To do this, they need to be confident they know…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reddit fined nearly $20 million by UK online privacy regulator for ‘using children\u2019s data unlawfully,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":217071,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/kfJL3ERtgKibogoVEn2qjE-2560-80.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217070"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217070"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217072,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217070\/revisions\/217072"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}