Brazil fines TikTok's owner R$153.7M over children's data
R$153.7M
≈ $29.8M at the time
Autoridade Nacional de Proteção de Dados
Brazil · 2026
Status: Not yet final
What happened
Brazil's data-protection authority fined ByteDance for processing the personal data of children and adolescents without a valid legal basis, across both logged-in accounts and guest browsing, and for failing to stop minors from registering in the first place.
ByteDance must delete the data of registered teenagers where guardian authorisation is not documented within 60 days, and committed to a compliance plan that applies stricter privacy defaults to under-16 accounts, changeable only with guardian approval. It is the ANPD's largest penalty to date and its first major action on children's data.
How it affected users
Children who never had an account still had their behaviour profiled through guest browsing, and those who did register were treated as ordinary adult users for data-collection purposes.
Status timeline
Aug 24, 2026
ByteDance notified of the penalty; the ANPD said it could appeal to the agency's Board of Directors within ten business days of notification.
Oct 15, 2026
No Board of Directors ruling on an appeal, and no confirmation that the fine was paid or became administratively final, found on the ANPD site or in reporting; recorded as not yet final.
Sources
- ANPD: ANPD multa TikTok em R$ 153,7 milhões por falhas na proteção de dados de crianças e adolescentesregulator
- Washington Post: Brazil fines TikTok's owner nearly $30 millionnews
Last verified 2026-10-15. Spotted an error? Report a correction.
Cite this entry
Deepak Gupta, "Brazil fines TikTok's owner R$153.7M over children's data," Tech Fines Directory, guptadeepak.com, 2026-08-25. https://guptadeepak.com/tech-fines/violation/tiktok-brazil-children-2026/