TikTok has removed more than 500,000 accounts in Italy following an intervention by the Italian Data Protection Authority. In January this year the regulator had ordered the video sharing social network to recheck the age of all its users and block any users who are below 13 years or whose age could not be verified.
The age verification drive was conducted between February 9 and April 21.
The regulator has shared that out of the 500,000 accounts removed, 400,000 belonged to users who declared an age under 13 years and 140,000 were likely to be below 16 years and identified based on "a combination of moderation and reporting tools" implemented within the app.