CV NEWS FEED // The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit on Aug. 2 against TikTok and its Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance, accusing them of violating children’s online privacy law.
According to Axios, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) began reviewing the case in 2019, after TikTok’s predecessor, Musical.ly, was fined $5.7 million for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which prohibits websites from collecting, using, or sharing personal information from children under 13 without parental consent.
In June 2024, the FTC sent a complaint about TikTok to the DOJ, indicating that its investigation uncovered “reason to believe” TikTok has either violated or is likely to violate COPPA.
The DOJ responded with a lawsuit on Aug. 2 accusing TikTok of conducting “massive-scale invasions of children’s privacy” by gathering data from children who can create accounts without parental consent.
The DOJ also claimed that TikTok and ByteDance enabled children to circumvent the app’s age restrictions and have “collected personal information even from individuals who identify themselves as children.”
Additionally, the lawsuit claims that the social media company failed to honor parents’ requests to delete their children’s accounts and data.
A TikTok spokesperson shared with Axios that they “disagree with these allegations, many of which relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed.” The spokesperson added that they are proud of their efforts to safeguard children.
Axios reports that the app has been facing scrutiny for years for its poor management of children’s data privacy and that the company has also been questioned in Congress over its addictive algorithm and disregard for children’s mental health.
Additionally, in 2023, European regulators fined TikTok more than $368 million for failing to adequately protect children’s personal information.
