On Friday, the Justice Department sued TikTok, alleging the company breached children’s online privacy laws and violated a previous settlement with another federal agency. The lawsuit, filed jointly with the Federal Trade Commission in a California federal court, adds to the ongoing legal challenges facing TikTok, which could impact its future operations in the U.S.
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The new lawsuit accuses TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, of breaching federal laws designed to protect children’s online privacy. Specifically, it alleges that the companies failed to obtain parental consent before collecting personal data from users under 13, did not honor parental requests to delete their children’s accounts, and knowingly kept accounts belonging to minors.
Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, stated, “This action is necessary to prevent the defendants, who are repeat offenders and operate on a massive scale, from collecting and using young children’s private information without any parental consent or control.”
In response, TikTok disputed the allegations, describing many of them as inaccurate or related to past practices. The company emphasized its efforts to create age-appropriate experiences with strong safeguards, including proactive measures to remove suspected underage users and features such as default screen time limits, Family Pairing, and enhanced privacy protections for minors.
The U.S. government decided to file the lawsuit against TikTok following an FTC investigation into the company's compliance with a previous settlement involving TikTok’s predecessor, Musical.ly.
In 2019, the federal government sued Musical.ly, alleging it violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by not notifying parents about the collection and use of personal information from users under 13. Musical.ly, acquired by ByteDance in 2017 and merged with TikTok, settled by paying $5.7 million and was ordered to comply with COPPA, which the government claims TikTok has failed to do.
The new complaint, filed by the Justice Department and FTC, accuses TikTok of knowingly allowing children to create accounts and collect their personal information without parental notification. This includes accounts in "Kids Mode," which restricts content creation but allows viewing. The lawsuit alleges TikTok retained and used this data, including user activities and identifiers, and shared it with other companies like Meta’s Facebook and AppsFlyer to increase engagement.
TikTok is also accused of allowing children to create accounts without providing their age or obtaining parental approval, using third-party service credentials to bypass age verification. These accounts, classified as “age unknown,” are claimed to number in the millions.
The complaint further alleges that TikTok made it difficult for parents to delete their children’s accounts and that the company’s policies were insufficient to prevent the proliferation of children’s accounts. TikTok's moderation efforts were criticized as inadequate, with reports suggesting moderators spent only five to seven seconds reviewing flagged accounts. Despite having technology to identify and remove children’s accounts, the company allegedly did not use it effectively.
The lawsuit also mentions ongoing FTC investigations into whether TikTok violated laws prohibiting “unfair and deceptive” practices related to Chinese access to U.S. user data, though these allegations are not included in the current complaint. The government is seeking fines and a preliminary injunction to prevent future violations.
Other social media companies have faced similar scrutiny: Google and YouTube settled in 2019 for $170 million over illegal data collection from children, and Meta Platforms Inc. was sued by dozens of states last fall for allegedly contributing to the youth mental health crisis through addictive features on Instagram and Facebook and collecting data on children under 13 without consent.