ICO considers ban on allowing children to 'like' on social media

The Information Commissioner's Office is considering proposals to restrict the actions that those under 18 can take on social media platforms.

According to a new report by the BBC, the ICO may move to ban social media platforms from allowing users under 18 to interact in certain ways. Under the proposal, they would be unable to 'like' things on Facebook or accumulate streaks on Snapchat. The proposal is part of a plan to prevent social media platforms from harvesting data from children, who may not be able to give informed consent.

The ICO told BBC World One that social media platforms could avoid having to ban underage users from performing those actions if the platfirm holders would just agree to stop collecting data on them. Social media sites collect huge amounts of data on the interactions of their users, which is often used to target advertising or sold to third parties.

The ICO is the UK body tasked with enforcing the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the UK, and has warned that fines of up to 20 million euros (£17.2m) or 4% of their worldwide turnover could be levied for failure to comply with the law. The ICO is also advising a jumber of common sense changes to some platforms to protect user privacy, such as tuening location tracking features off by default.

Source: BBC News