News-July-16-2026
July 16, 2026 — The United Kingdom's communications regulator opened an Online Safety Act investigation into TikTok's child-safety age-assurance systems.[1]
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Ofcom investigates TikTok over child-safety age inference
The United Kingdom's communications regulator Ofcom launched an investigation into TikTok under the Online Safety Act over whether the platform's age-assurance approach adequately determines which users are children.[1] Politico reported that Ofcom's concern focused on TikTok's use of age inference to estimate users' ages and decide whether child-safety protections should apply.[1] The inquiry is significant for AI law because age-estimation and inference systems are becoming a central compliance mechanism in online-safety regulation, child-protection duties, and platform-risk governance.[1]