US Justice Department Hits TikTok With Lawsuit Over Alleged Children’s Privacy Violations

The U.S. government is suing TikTok for a series of privacy violations involving children. According to court documents filed by the U.S. Department of Justice in California, the Chinese-owned app violated both the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and a 2019 agreement with the U.S. government. If the court rules in favor of the government, TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, which is directly named in the lawsuit, will likely face a series of fines. As for the specific offense, prosecutors allege that TikTok knowingly allowed users under the age of 13 to create accounts and use its platform. The video-based app also ignored parents’ requests to close their children’s accounts and ignored promises to notify parents and delete data from accounts belonging to children under 13.

In a statement, Acting Deputy Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer says, “Through this action, the Department seeks to ensure that TikTok lives up to its obligation to protect the privacy rights of children and the efforts of parents to protect their children.”

This isn’t the first time TikTok has found itself in legal trouble over child protection issues. It has also faced challenges from the US government multiple times over its relationship with Chinese authorities and the potential national security risks that pose. While this case and similar legal issues could result in financial penalties, national security concerns could potentially lead to a ban on the app in the US at some point in the future.

Montana became the first U.S. state to ban TikTok in 2023, and the U.S. is toying with several pieces of legislation that could lead to a federal ban on the app. The main concern is the app’s ties to the Chinese government and the national security risks it poses. That includes what happens to the data TikTok collects about its users and how its algorithm could be used to promote content that could sway public opinion or elections. TikTok is also banned on all devices used by U.S. government employees, with a few exceptions.

An outright ban has not happened yet, but it is likely to happen very soon. In April 2024, President Biden signed a bill that gave TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, a year to sell its video-based app. If the app is not sold in that time frame, we could see a formal ban on TikTok in 2025. With that in mind, there is pressure from various civil rights groups and legal challenges from TikTok itself to overturn the proposed ban.

As for what’s stopping people from simply bypassing such a ban with a VPN or similar tools, the United States is proposing legislation to prevent that sort of thing as well. The RESTRICT Act of 2023 would punish anyone who accesses an app banned in the United States with up to 20 years in prison. Lawmakers say such a sentence would only be handed out when the apps are used in a way that directly threatens national security, but it could also be used to prosecute people who access apps like TikTok if the bill ever gets signed into law and the ban on the Chinese app eventually goes into effect.