TikTok Shop: minors on camera over 50% of a video, audit a batch

TikTok Shop's Policy Pulse for August 2026 expands its Underage Commercial Behavior rule: a minor who is the sole or primary on-camera participant, meaning alone on screen or on screen for more than 50 percent of the video, cannot promote products. Sume cannot tell you someone's age, but it can give you a still sheet to review the casting of a video batch against that rule.

What the rule says, in the page's words

The Policy Pulse is a summary and links to the full policy, so read the policy before you rely on any edge case, such as a parent with a child or a clip where the minor is only briefly visible.

Build the review sheet

Pull a still every second from each candidate with video inspect: frames: {fps: 1} returns up to 24 stills per call (the program is capped at 24, so a 20-second clip fits in one call), and the call is sync by default and waits up to 30 seconds. The stills come back as durable media.sume.com image URLs.

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/video-inspect \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: audit-001" \
  -d '{"video_url":"https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/clip01.mp4","frames":{"fps":1}}'

Count the screen time

The 50 percent test is about time. With one still per second, count the stills where the minor is on screen and divide by the total. A reviewer tick-sheet per clip is enough, and keeping the sheet gives you a record of what was reviewed.

For clips longer than 24 seconds, split the range with video trim or use frames.at to sample specific instants. If you generate characters, read the sibling guidance on AI child characters before you cast one as the main on-camera voice.