Aug. 25 (UPI) — Brazil’s data protection authority fined TikTok owner ByteDance 153.7 million reais, or about $29.8 million, for unlawfully processing the personal data of children and adolescents and failing to adopt effective measures to protect them.

The penalty, published Tuesday in the country’s official gazette, also requires the company to delete data collected improperly and implement a plan to strengthen protections for minors on the platform, the National Data Protection Authority said.

The investigation identified five violations of Brazil’s General Data Protection Law involving two ways of accessing TikTok: content available to users who enter the platform without creating an account and content for registered users.

According to the authority, TikTok processed minors’ data without a valid legal basis in both cases. The company also failed to implement sufficient mechanisms to prevent children and adolescents from providing data or registering on the platform.

The authority also concluded ByteDance failed to provide concrete evidence that its technical and organizational measures were effective in complying with Brazilian data protection rules.

Under the compliance plan approved by the authority, accounts belonging to users younger than 16 will automatically have more restrictive privacy settings. Legal guardians will be required to authorize any changes to those controls.

TikTok also must strengthen its parental supervision tools and apply stricter filters to prevent minors from accessing inappropriate content.

The platform will impose additional restrictions on people who use TikTok without registering. Those users will not be able to post content, comment, send direct messages, follow other accounts or stream or watch live videos.

The unregistered version also will display no advertising in Brazil and provide less personalized recommendations and only content considered appropriate for all ages. The experience will be limited to 12 hours, and the platform must reduce the amount of information it collects about those users.

The authority said data permitted in that mode will be limited primarily to language, region, basic device information used to prevent fraud, and data necessary for the app to function.

ByteDance may appeal the penalty to the authority’s board within 10 business days of the notification, which was issued Monday. TikTok had not responded publicly to the decision as of Tuesday, according to G1.

The penalty against TikTok comes two weeks after the same authority ordered Discord to suspend livestreaming in Brazil because of risks to children and adolescents. Unlike the TikTok fine, the measure against Discord was preventive and is part of a separate investigation.