The UK’s media regulator, Ofcom, has launched a formal investigation into whether TikTok‘s methods for identifying underage users are effective enough to keep children away from harmful content on the platform.

Ofcom said in a statement that services hosting harmful material, including content related to pornography, eating disorders, self-harm, and suicide, are required to use “highly effective” age assurance to identify child users and shield them from it. TikTok relies on “age inference,” a method that estimates whether a user is a child or an adult based on their activity and behavior on the app, such as the videos they watch or accounts they interact with.

“Our latest evidence reinforces serious concerns about whether some age inference methods can reliably distinguish between children and adults online,” Ofcom said, adding that the investigation will determine whether TikTok has failed, or is failing, to meet its obligations under the Online Safety Act.

Kate Davies, Ofcom’s Group Director for Strategy and Research, told the BBC’s Today program that “some method of age checks being used by social media are not working well enough,” and said the regulator had “very serious questions about whether age inference can be highly effective.”

TikTok pushed back on the characterization. “We strictly enforce age-appropriate experiences through expert-informed platform rules and advanced age inference technologies, in line with major industry peers,” a company spokesperson said, adding that TikTok has invested “billions” in online safety since launching in the UK eight years ago. The company also said users who fail to enter a birth date, placing them over 13 when creating an account, are barred from making a new one with different information.

Penalties and Wider Scrutiny

Under the Online Safety Act’s protection of children’s codes, which took effect on July 25, 2025, Ofcom can fine noncompliant services up to £18 million or 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is greater, and in the most serious cases can seek to have a site blocked or restricted in the UK.

The investigation follows an Ofcom review in May that found TikTok was not “safe enough” for children and called for stronger safety action. It also arrives roughly a month after the UK government announced plans to bar under-16s from a range of platforms. Ofcom research identifies TikTok as the third most-used site or app among eight to 14-year-olds in the UK, behind YouTube and WhatsApp. Separately, children aged four to 15 spend an average of eight hours and 45 minutes a week watching video-sharing platforms.

Andy Burrows, chief executive of the Molly Rose Foundation, welcomed the investigation but said Ofcom must also address what he called TikTok’s “blatant failure to clean up its toxic algorithms and comply with child safety duties.” Instagram also uses age inference among other methods to flag accounts that may belong to minors, placing UK users into an age-appropriate experience by default until they are determined to be adults.

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Check Out Our Podcast