TikTok sued by Justice Department over alleged child privacy violations impacting millions

The U.S. government accused popular social media app TikTok in a Friday lawsuit of committing privacy violations that left millions of children vulnerable to data collection and adult content.

“TikTok knowingly and repeatedly violated kids’ privacy, threatening the safety of millions of children across the country,” said Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina M. Khan in a press release accompanying the lawsuit. The commission investigated the issue and then referred it to the Justice Department to bring a lawsuit.

The accusations 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 accounts of users they knew were children, according to the legal complaint.

"Instead, Defendants continue collecting these children’s personal information, showing them videos not intended for children, serving them ads and generating revenue from such ads, and allowing adults to directly communicate with them through TikTok," the government said.

"We disagree with these allegations, many of which relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed," TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek told USA TODAY.

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

"To that end, 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 the statement.

The government is seeking civil penalties and a court order preventing future violations of the child privacy law. It didn't specify the total financial amount it wants, but cited a law allowing up a penalty of up to $51,744 for individual violations that have occurred since Jan. 10, 2024.

Tensions mount between TikTok and US officials

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

In April, President Joe Biden signed a law requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok's US assets by January or face a TikTok ban in the US. The government says TikTok's China-based ownership structure could help the Chinese government gather sensitive information on 170 million Americans who use the app, endangering national security interests. TikTok has sued, alleging the law violates free speech protections.

The accusations of child privacy violations aren't new.

An earlier version of TikTok, titled Musical.ly until it was renamed in 2019, was ordered to pay a $5.7 million civil penalty in May of that year and destroy personal information for children under 13, remove accounts for users with an unidentified age, and maintain records tied to complying with child privacy rules.

Nonetheless, TikTok and ByteDance have failed to delete child accounts and information that their own employees and systems identified, according to the new lawsuit.

The violations have occurred "on a massive scale," resulting in years of personal information collection on millions of American children under 13, the government said.