TikTok recruits senior UK privacy regulator as it battles fine and investigation

The social media company TikTok, which is currently appealing a £12.7 million fine imposed by Britain’s data protection regulator, is set to hire one of that regulator’s most senior officials in a move that could provoke concerns about conflicts of interest.

Stephen Bonner, the deputy commissioner for regulatory supervision at the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) — an official whom a senior colleague called “integral” to the ICO’s work — is joining TikTok later this year as the head of the company’s European data protection department.

It follows the ICO issuing TikTok the £12.7 million ($17.25 million) fine in 2023 for misusing children’s data and launching in March what it called a “major investigation” into the social media platform’s ongoing collection of children’s data.

Bonner’s move, which was first reported by Politico, has been criticised as an example of the so-called revolving-door for public servants moving from roles in which they held businesses to account into roles at those same regulated companies. Such moves risk what political scientists call regulatory capture, where the regulators unduly prioritize the interests of the sector they are supposed to be supervising.

Dozens of former public servants have moved into the private sector in fields that directly overlap with their previous roles — particularly in the social media and technology sectors — raising concerns about conflicts of interest, as a joint investigation by Tortoise Media and BBC News reported earlier this year.

“Stephen Bonner’s move is the latest of a long list of cases where the ICO has failed to uphold decent standards of public life. Civil servants should use their position to pursue the public interest, not their own career goals,” said Mariano delli Santi, the legal and policy officer at digital rights campaigners Open Rights Group.

Paul Arnold, the deputy chief executive at the ICO, defended Bonner’s move in a statement sent to Recorded Future News: “Stephen has been an integral part of our success for the past four years and we wish him all the best as he returns to the private sector.

“All former ICO employees in new employment are subject to strict legal and contractual duty of confidentiality, something set out in the Data Protection Act,” Arnold said.

The ICO’s deputy chief executive stressed that Bonner had “stepped back fully from any piece of work where there could be a perceived or actual conflict of interest” while he worked out his notice period.

The agency stressed that Bonner was not the decision maker in the agency's 2023 investigation that led to the £12.7 million fine, nor was he the decision maker on the recent investigation into TikTok's content recommendation systems as they relate to children's data. It acknowledged that Bonner had been involved in the current investigation but was recused to avoid the perception of conflicts of interest.

“The ICO has a long and proud history of former employees using their experience and expertise to raise and maintain high standards of data protection as they continue to progress in their careers,” said Arnold.

Mariano delli Santi, the legal and policy officer at the U.K.-based Open Rights Group, noted: “When in opposition, Baroness Jones of Whitchurch proposed an amendment to the Data Bill that would have precluded ICO staff from joining businesses that were subject to public enforcement action.”

As submitted to parliament, the amendment would have prevented ICO staff “from seeking employment from the industries they regulated during their terms. It is to probe what steps the Government and ICO are taking to prevent the so-called ‘revolving door’ between regulators and the industries they regulate.”

Delli Santi added that the Labour Party “scrapped this proposal once in government.”

“The Labour Party ran on a manifesto that promised to restore integrity in British public life, and the Data Bill could have been a vehicle to ensure the ICO protects people’s rights rather than corporate and private interests’. The Labour government failed to seize this opportunity, and failed to deliver on their electoral promise as well,” he said.

Baroness Jones, who is now a junior minister at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) which sponsors the independent ICO, did not personally respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for DSIT said: “The ICO is independent of government and accountable to Parliament. All current and former Staff at the ICO are bound by a statutory duty of confidentiality and are answerable to Parliament in pursuit of this duty. We expect all of these employees to work to the very highest standards and to fully observe their duty of confidentiality.”

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.