ON 25 February 2026, Britain’s data privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office, fined Reddit £14.5 million ($19.5 million) for failures involving children’s personal information. The ICO said the penalties were warranted because the failures resulted in the platform using children’s data unlawfully, with children under 13 having their personal information collected and used in ways they could not understand, consent to or control.
It criticised Reddit’s age verification measures, noting that although the platform does not allow children under 13 to use its service, it did not have any way to check users’ ages before July 2025. Reddit rolled out age verification in July 2025 to access mature content, asking users to declare their age when setting up an account. The watchdog said self-declaration is easy to bypass and indicated it would continue to monitor Reddit’s handling of children’s data. Reddit said it would appeal the decision.