"TikTok to strengthen age-verification technology across EU", 16 January 2026

TikTok will begin to roll out new age-verification technology across the EU in the coming weeks, as calls grow for an Australia-style social media ban for under-16s in countries including the UK.

ByteDance-owned TikTok, and other major platforms popular with young people such as YouTube, are coming under increasing pressure to better identify and remove accounts belonging to children.

The system, which has been quietly piloted in the EU over the past year, analyses profile information, posted videos and behavioural signals to predict whether an account may be belong to a user under the age of 13...

TikTok said accounts flagged by the system would be reviewed by specialist moderators rather than face an automatic ban, and may then be removed.

It also said users would have an opportunity to appeal against the removal of an account if an error had been made. Options for age identification offered by TikTok during the appeal process include facial age estimation by the verification company Yoti, credit card authorisation or government-approved identification...

TikTok said its system complied with data and privacy laws. “The prediction of the likelihood that someone is under the age of 13 is not used for purposes other than to decide whether to send an account to human moderators and to monitor and improve the technology,” the company said in a blogpost.

“By adopting this approach, we are able to deliver safety for teens in a privacy-preserving manner. We take our responsibility to protect our community, and teens in particular, incredibly seriously.”...

The European parliament is pushing for age limits on social media, while Denmark wants to ban social media for those under 15.

TikTok told Reuters the new technology was built specifically to comply with the EU’s regulatory requirements. The company has worked with Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, its lead EU privacy regulator, while developing the system...