Imgur, the popular image-hosting platform, has gone offline in the UK.
Visitors to the site instead see a warning that the site is “not available in your region”.
The problems come after a dispute between Imgur’s parent company and the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, which says that it did not do enough to protect children’s data.
The outage has caused issues on other platforms such as Reddit, where users often rely on Imgur to host pictures that they then share on the site.
Visitors from the UK to the site can click through to an article that does not mention the UK ICO but offers way for users to get their data or delete their account without accessing the main site. That appears to be part of compliance with data protection regulations.
“Access to Imgur from the United Kingdom is no longer available,” a message at the top of that page reads.
The UK ICO began investigating Imgur in March, saying at the time that it was looking into whether Imgur was complying with rules about data collected on young users, including a requirement to minimise the amount of data that is stored in the first place.
The ICO told Imgur’s parent company that it was planning to issue a fine last month. It is aware that the website is now offline, saying that the decision to “restrict access in the UK is a commercial decision taken by the company”.
It would still be pursuing the investigation and any punishment that may result, ICO interim executive director for regulatory supervision Tim Capel said in a statement.
“We have been clear that exiting the UK does not allow an organisation to avoid responsibility for any prior infringement of data protection law, and our investigation remains ongoing,” he said.
“This update has been provided to give clarity on our investigation, and we will not be providing any further detail at this time.”
