British communications regulator Ofcom yesterday said it has launched an investigation into whether TikTok is complying with its duties to protect children from encountering harmful content on its service.

Under the British Online Safety Act, social media companies, which do not ban harmful content, and those at higher risk of it being shared on their service, must use highly effective age checks to identify who their child users are in order to protect them from harmful content on their service.

This content check includes pornography, eating disorder, self-harm and suicide content.

TikTok currently uses a type of age assurance known as ‘age inference’. This involves analysing a user’s activity and behaviour on a platform to estimate whether they are a child or an adult, Ofcom stated in a statement.

Age inference is not included in the industry guidance as a method that is capable of being highly effective for this purpose, the regulator pointed out.

“Our Age Assurance report published today also raises serious doubts about the effectiveness of some of these models. Our evidence suggests that, in some cases, age inference methods may be failing to correctly detect significant numbers of children, putting them at risk of exposure to harmful content,” the Ofcom statement added.

In light of these concerns, Ofcom said it has opened an investigation to establish whether TikTok’s age checks are effective in preventing children from encountering harmful content on its platform.

However, the regulator clarified that the opening of this investigation does not mean that it has reached any conclusions about whether TikTok has breached its duties.

“Should we ultimately identify compliance failings, we have the power to impose fines of up to £18m or 10 percent of qualifying worldwide revenue,” it said.