ACCORDING to the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), Reddit has been fined £14.47m for GDPR non-compliance, with the regulator stating the penalty took into account the platform’s large number of child users, potential harm, the duration of the failings and Reddit’s global turnover.
The ICO’s action cited two main failings: Reddit did not put robust age verification in place to ensure a lawful basis for processing the personal information of children under 13, and it failed to carry out a data protection impact assessment to mitigate risks to children before January 2025. The fine follows Reddit’s introduction of age verification to access mature content in July 2025, and its current practice of asking users to state their age, which the ICO noted could be bypassed easily.
John Edwards, the information commissioner, warned that children could be exposed to content they should not see, emphasising responsibilities on online services to know user age and implement effective age assurance. Several experts questioned the intrusiveness of such checks, suggesting alternative approaches like a double-blind verification model to reduce data exposure and cross-service tracking.