Reddit fined $20 million by UK for not effectively checking users’ ages

The U.K.’s data protection regulator on Tuesday fined Reddit £14.47 million ($19.5 million) for failing to properly check the age of children using the platform.

The regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), says that because Reddit lacked appropriate age assurance methods, the popular platform collected and used children’s data illegally.

Reddit introduced stronger age verification measures for users to access mature content in July 2025, but it still relied on consumers to self-declare their age when opening an account, an ICO press release said.

The ICO advised Reddit that “relying on self-declaration presents risks to children as it is easy to bypass,” according to the press release. 

Reddit’s lack of a rigorous age assurance tool means it “did not have a lawful basis for processing the personal information of children under the age of 13,” the press release said.

“These failures meant Reddit was using children’s data unlawfully, potentially exposing them to inappropriate and harmful content,” it added.  

The platform also failed to carry out a data protection impact assessment to address risks its system posed to children prior to January 2025, the press release said. A large number of children use Reddit, the ICO said its probe found.

The ICO began fully enforcing age assurance as a core requirement of its Age Appropriate Design Code in September 2021.

The penalty follows the ICO’s February 5 crackdown on image sharing and hosting platform Imgur — owned by Media Lab.AI — for the same violations. The fines are part of a broader ICO effort to address whether companies are doing enough to protect children online, the regulator said.

A spokesperson for Reddit said in a statement that the platform doesn’t “require users to share information about their identities, regardless of age, because we are deeply committed to their privacy and safety.”

“The ICO’s insistence that we collect more private information on every UK user is counterintuitive and at odds with our strong belief in our users' online privacy and safety.”

The company plans to appeal the ICO decision, the statement said.

The ICO said it will continue to review how Reddit processes children’s personal data as part of an ongoing campaign to enforce children’s privacy law on online platforms that rely mainly on self-declaration to check users’ ages, which the press release said is “not enough when children may be at risk.”

“It's concerning that a company the size of Reddit failed in its legal duty to protect the personal information of UK children,” John Edwards, the U.K. information commissioner, said in a statement.

“Children under 13 had their personal information collected and used in ways they could not understand, consent to or control.”

Edwards’s statement said he “strongly” encourages industry to take note of the Reddit enforcement and adjust practices.

The ICO said the large fine amount was determined by how many children were impacted, the degree of harm caused, the timespan for the negligence and Reddit’s global turnover.