Reddit has been fined £14.47 million by the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for failing to protect the personal data of children using its platform, according to a report by The Independent.
The penalty follows an investigation which found the social media company processed the personal information of children under the age of 13 without a lawful basis. The ICO stated that Reddit failed to implement “robust age assurance mechanisms,” relying instead on users to self-declare their age, a method the regulator described as “easy to bypass.“
UK Information Commissioner John Edwards stated that the company’s failings left children “exposed to content they should not have seen” and that they had their data used in ways they could not control or understand. The watchdog noted that Reddit’s terms of service prohibit children under 13, but age-check measures were not implemented until July 2025.
The fine is the largest ever issued by the ICO regarding children’s privacy. The regulator estimated that a “large number” of underage users were present on the platform during the period of non-compliance. Reddit has signaled its intention to appeal the decision.
The enforcement action is part of a broader ICO strategy targeting online platforms that lack effective age verification. The regulator previously investigated similar practices at TikTok and Imgur, resulting in a £12.7 million fine for TikTok in 2023 and a penalty for Imgur earlier in 2026.
Reddit is an American social media and news aggregation site that allows users to post and discuss content across thousands of specialized communities. The company is headquartered in San Francisco and transitioned to a public listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 2024 under the ticker RDDT.
