The US Department of Justice (DoJ) along with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have filed a lawsuit against popular video-sharing platform TikTok for “gross violation” of the country’s child privacy laws.
The agencies alleged that the company knowingly allowed children to create TikTok accounts and view and share short videos and messages with adults and other users of the service.
They also accused him of illegally collecting and retaining a wide range of personal information about those children without notifying or obtaining their parents’ consent, in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
TikTok’s practices also violate a Consent Order 2019 between the company and the government, in which it committed to notify parents before collecting children’s data and to remove videos from users under the age of 13, they added.
COPPA requires online platforms to collect, use or disclose personal information from children under the age of 13 unless they have obtained parental consent. It also requires companies to delete all collected information upon parental request.
“Even for accounts that were created in”Child mode“(a shortened version of TikTok intended for children under the age of 13), the defendants unlawfully collected and stored children’s email addresses and other types of personal information,” – Department of Justice. said.
“Furthermore, when parents discovered their children’s accounts and asked the defendants to delete the accounts and the information in them, the defendants often failed to comply with those requests.”
The complaint also alleged that the ByteDance-owned company subjected millions of children under the age of 13 to extensive data collection that enabled targeted advertising and allowed them to interact with adults and access adult content.
He also accused TikTok of failing to exercise due diligence in the account creation process by creating backdoors that allowed children to bypass age gates aimed at verifying children under the age of 13 by allowing them to log in using third-party services such as Google and Instagram and classifying such accounts as accounts of “unknown age”.
“TikTok’s screeners allegedly spent an average of only five to seven seconds looking at each account to determine if the account belonged to a child,” FTC saidadding that it will take action to protect children’s privacy from firms that deploy “sophisticated digital tools to monitor children and profit from their data”.
TikTok has over 170 million active users in the US. Although the company disputes the allegations, this is the latest setback for the video platform, which is already subject of law this would result in the app being sold or banned by early 2025 due to national security concerns. This is mine filed a petition in federal court, trying to overturn the ban.
“We disagree with these allegations, many of which relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been reviewed.” — TikTok said. “We offer an age-appropriate experience with strong safeguards, proactively remove suspected underage users, and have voluntarily launched features such as default device time limits, family pairing, and additional privacy protections for minors.”
The social media platform also has faced scrutiny around the world on child protection. In September 2023, European Union regulators fined TikTok 345 million euros for violating data protection laws related to the processing of children’s data. In April 2023, the ICO fined it £12.7 million for unlawfully processing the data of 1.4 million children under the age of 13 who used its platform without parental consent.
The lawsuit comes after the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) revealed it had asked 11 media and video-sharing platforms to improve their children’s privacy practices or face enforcement action. The names of the offending services are not disclosed.
“Eleven of the 34 platforms ask about issues with default privacy settings, geolocation, or age guarantees, and explain how their approach is consistent (Children’s Code),” this said. “We are also talking to some platforms about targeted advertising to set out expectations for changes to ensure practices are in line with the law and code.”
