TikTok is finding itself in deep waters once again with more reports of privacy concerns. This time, the Irish Data Protection Commission has handed down a massive fine to the company due to the mishandling of underage accounts.

Axar.az reports that TikTok is no stranger to controversy surrounding user privacy and security. For years, it's been well documented that TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, is not the most reliable when it comes to keeping user data private. This behaviour has led to various governments attempting to restrict, or in some cases, completely ban, the application in their respective regions. Earlier this year, Montana became the first US state to pass a vote to ban TikTok.

For a while, this was ByteDance and TikTok's biggest concern, as the decline in active users would result in lower profits and potentially open up space to competitors in a given demographic. However, a recent punishment handed down by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) may prove to be as damaging as any regional ban.

The DPC announced on Friday that it had agreed to hand out a €345 million ($368 million) fine to TikTok due to the mishandling of underage accounts. According to the investigation, TikTok violated the European Union's GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations) by defaulting child user accounts to the public, which would allow anyone to view the profile and comment on any posts from the user.