EU preliminarily finds TikTok in breach of DSA over minors' account privacy

The European Commission announced on July 24, 2026 that it has sent TikTok preliminary findings concluding the platform's default account settings for minors fail to meet the safety standards required under the Digital Services Act (DSA). The finding centers specifically on how broadly minors' content becomes visible when their accounts are set to "public," a setting available to users as young as 13.

What the Commission actually found

Under TikTok's current defaults, a public account belonging to a minor can be viewed by any user, including people without a TikTok account at all. For older minors aged 16 and 17, the exposure goes further: their content can also be recommended to other users through TikTok's algorithmic For You feed, extending reach well beyond anyone who deliberately sought out their profile. The Commission's preliminary view is that this contradicts its own published guidelines on the protection of minors, which call for content from young users' public accounts to be visible by default only to people the minor has explicitly accepted as followers.

Notably, the Commission's findings don't ask TikTok to eliminate the option for older minors to share more broadly — it says teens aged 16-17 may still choose to make content available to a wider audience. What it objects to is the default: broader visibility should be something a minor opts into, not something TikTok opts them into automatically. The Commission was also explicit that under no circumstances should minors' content be accessible to a global audience outside the TikTok platform entirely, and that TikTok should stop recommending minors' content to other users via the For You feed regardless of account settings.

Part of a long-running investigation

This finding is a checkpoint within a broader DSA compliance investigation into TikTok that the Commission opened back on February 19, 2024 — meaning today's announcement is not a new inquiry but the product of roughly a year and a half of scrutiny reaching a formal preliminary conclusion. TikTok now has the opportunity to review the Commission's evidence and respond in writing before any final decision, and the European Board for Digital Services will also be consulted as part of the process.

What happens if the finding is confirmed

If the Commission's preliminary findings are confirmed after TikTok's response, it can issue a formal non-compliance decision and impose a fine of up to 6% of TikTok's global annual turnover — a ceiling that, given TikTok parent ByteDance's scale, would represent a substantially larger potential penalty than the €890 million Digital Markets Act fine the Commission levied against Google earlier this week, though DMA and DSA fines are calculated under different legal frameworks and address different conduct.

Why this matters beyond TikTok

The case sits at the center of the EU's broader push to make default privacy settings for minors — not just the availability of privacy options — the legal standard platforms are held to. Regulators across major jurisdictions have increasingly focused on the gap between a platform offering privacy controls and a platform making privacy the automatic starting point for young users, and a confirmed finding against TikTok would set a concrete precedent other very large online platforms designated under the DSA will need to account for in their own default settings for minors.

As detailed in the European Commission's announcement, no final decision or fine has been issued yet — TikTok's written response is the next formal step in the process.