Imgur has shut down its picture internet hosting platform for customers within the UK and is displaying a “content material not out there in your area” discover throughout the positioning and on third-party embeds. The transfer comes after the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) warned which supposed to impose fines on Imgur’s proprietor, MediaLab AI, after a investigation within the service’s dealing with of kids’s information, age verification and privateness safety. The precise particulars of the wonderful or what the conclusions of the investigation had been haven’t been shared.
“We are conscious of reviews that the social media platform Imgur just isn’t at present out there within the United Kingdom. Imgur’s determination to limit entry within the United Kingdom is a business determination made by the corporate,” regulators mentioned in a assertion. They additionally harassed that “leaving the UK” doesn’t imply an organization can keep away from the sanctions imposed and that the investigation is ongoing.
“Our findings are provisional and the ICO will rigorously contemplate any illustration from MediaLab earlier than making a remaining determination on whether or not to situation a financial penalty,” the regulators mentioned.
In latest years, the ICO has stepped up enforcement of its insurance policies governing the privateness of minors’ information. In 2023, the watchdog fined TikTok $15.8 million for what it mentioned had been a number of violations of knowledge safety legal guidelines. The regulator alleged that in 2020 TikTok allowed as much as 1.4 million youngsters below 13 to make use of the app, opposite to its personal insurance policies. TikTok was investigated as soon as once more this yr for related alleged violations. The ICO additionally beforehand raised considerations round a Snapchat generative AI chatbot known as My AI, claiming it put youngsters’s privateness in danger.
