In an escalation of scrutiny, TikTok has been sued by the government for violating a federal law intended to protect children’s privacy online.
The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission, in a lawsuit filed in the Central District of California on Friday, sued TikTok and Chinese parent company ByteDance over illegally collecting personal information on children. It alleges breaches of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, the central law protecting youngsters on the internet that restricts tracking by online services such as social media apps, video game platforms and digital advertising networks.
The move comes after the FTC, in a rare move, unveiled in June that an investigation “uncovered reason to believe” that the companies violated or intended to violate COPPA. The announcement was made as the government and TikTok engage in a high-profile First Amendment battle that’ll decide whether ByteDance is forced to sell the social media platform or face a national ban.
In a statement, a company spokesperson said, “We disagree with these allegations, many of which relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed.” It added, “We offer age-appropriate experiences with stringent safeguards, proactively remove suspected underage users, and have voluntarily launched features such as default screentime limits, Family Pairing, and additional privacy protections for minors.”
According to Friday’s complaint, TikTok, since 2019, knowingly permitted children to create regular accounts, which they used to view, share and engage with adults on the platform. Through these accounts, the company collected a wide breadth of personal information without obtaining consent from their parents, the lawsuit says.
The collection of data also included accounts created in “Kids Mode,” a version of the platform intended for children under 13. When parents asked TikTok to delete the profiles, it often ignored the requests, according to the complaint, which notes a failure to implement policies and process for identifying and deleting accounts created by children.
“The Department is deeply concerned that TikTok has continued to collect and retain children’s personal information despite a court order barring such conduct,” said Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer in a statement. “With this action, the Department seeks to ensure that TikTok honors its obligation to protect children’s privacy rights and parents’ efforts to protect their children.”
The probe that unearthed potential violations of COPPA, which requires that websites and online services directed at children obtain parental consent before collecting data from children, stems from Musical.ly’s $5.7 million settlement in 2019 — at the time, the largest civil penalty obtained by the commission in such a case — with the FTC. ByteDance merged TikTok with Musical.ly in 2017 in a deal that’s still under review by The U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment.
Among the central concerns that lawmakers have advanced in its scrutiny of TikTok include the possibility that it has provided user data to the Chinese government or that it’s been directed to influence the content users see on the platform, though no such evidence has been presented thus far.