TikTok violated children’s privacy ‘on a massive scale’: Justice Department lawsuit

The U.S. government in a lawsuit filed Friday accused popular social media app TikTok of violating privacy laws that exposed millions of children to data collection and adult content.

“TikTok has knowingly and repeatedly violated children’s privacy, endangering the safety of millions of children across the country,” Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina M. Khan said in a press release accompanying the lawsuit. The commission investigated the case and then referred it to the Justice Department for prosecution.

The charges against TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, center on the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits websites from knowingly collecting or using personal information from children under 13 without parental consent. TikTok and ByteDance violated the law and related regulations by actively avoiding deleting the accounts of users they knew were children, according to the legal complaint.

“Instead, defendants continue to collect personal information about these children, expose them to videos not intended for children, display advertisements to them and generate revenue from such advertisements, and allow adults to communicate directly with them through TikTok,” the government said.

“We disagree with these accusations, many of which refer to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been discredited,” TikTok spokesman Alex Haurek told USA TODAY.

Haurek said the company is proud of its efforts to protect children and will continue to improve the platform.

“To that end, we offer age-appropriate services with rigorous safeguards, proactively remove suspected underage users, and have voluntarily launched features like default screen time limits, family pairing, and additional privacy protections for minors,” the statement reads.

The government is seeking civil penalties and an injunction to prevent future violations of the Children’s Privacy Act. It did not specify the total amount of money it is seeking, but cited a statute that allows for penalties of up to $51,744 for individual violations that occurred on or after Jan. 10, 2024.

Tensions Rise Between TikTok and US Officials

The lawsuit is just the latest trouble for the short-video social media app.

In April, President Joe Biden signed a bill requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. assets by January or face a ban on TikTok in the U.S. The government says TikTok’s Chinese ownership structure could help the Chinese government collect sensitive information about the 170 million Americans who use the app, threatening national security interests. TikTok sued the company, saying the law violates free speech protections.

Accusations of violating children’s privacy are nothing new.

The earlier version of TikTok, which was called Musical.ly until it changed its name in 2019, was ordered in May of this year to pay a $5.7 million civil penalty and to destroy the personal information of children under the age of 13, delete the accounts of users of unknown ages and retain records related to its compliance with children’s privacy policies.

However, according to the new lawsuit, TikTok and ByteDance failed to delete the children’s accounts or information that was identified by their employees and systems.

The government said the breaches occurred “on a massive scale” and resulted in the years-long collection of personal information from millions of American children under the age of 13.