EU Digital Services Act: Commission opens formal proceedings against TikTok over child safety

The European Commission has launched formal proceedings against TikTok under the Digital Services Act over suspected failures in protecting minors, focusing on the platform's age verification systems, default privacy settings for children, and design features that may stimulate addictive behaviour. The investigation will assess whether TikTok has complied with obligations to mitigate systemic risks to the mental health and well-being of young users, including risks from content recommendation algorithms and the adequacy of tools allowing parents to monitor their children's activity. If the Commission finds breaches, TikTok could face fines of up to six percent of its global turnover and be required to implement binding commitments to change its systems.

Enforcement actions targeting platform design and default settings reflect a regulatory shift toward structural accountability for child safety outcomes. Detection modules tuned to grooming, sextortion and age-inappropriate contact operate within the direct-message layer where much predatory behaviour occurs, identifying harmful patterns in real time and enabling parents, schools and safety teams to act on acute risk rather than reviewing settings or monitoring screen time retrospectively. Guardii's capability to surface a child in crisis or under coercion to the right actor at the right moment offers platforms a concrete mechanism to meet systemic-risk obligations under frameworks like the DSA, addressing the behaviour that drives harm rather than the interface alone.