The US Department of Justice has intensified its scrutiny of TikTok, filing a lawsuit against the video-sharing platform for allegedly violating children’s privacy laws.
The DOJ, in conjunction with the Federal Trade Commission, alleges in a lawsuit filed August 2 in the US District Court for the Central District of California that TikTok was collecting personal information without obtaining parental consent. The department said this violates the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
COPPA, which took effect in 2000, prohibits websites and online services from knowingly collecting, using, or disclosing personal information from children under 13 without first notifying and obtaining parental consent. It also requires them to delete personal information collected from children upon their parents’ request. This lawsuit alleges that TikTok has been in violation of COPPA since at least 2019.
“In 2019, the government sued TikTok’s predecessor, Musical.ly, for COPPA violations, and since then the defendants have been subject to a court order requiring them to undertake specific measures to comply with COPPA,” the DOJ said in a statement on Friday (August 2). TikTok acquired Musical.ly in late 2017. Following the 2019 lawsuit, TikTok agreed to pay $5.7 million to settle the FTC’s allegations that Musical.ly “illegally collected personal information from children.”
However, the FTC in June suggested that it found more evidence that TikTok and its parent company ByteDance may be in violation of COPPA again, prompting the commission to refer the complaint to the DOJ.
“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.”
Brian M. Boynton, Department of Justice
Most recently, FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said, “TikTok knowingly and repeatedly violated kids’ privacy, threatening the safety of millions of children across the country. The FTC will continue to use the full scope of its authorities to protect children online — especially as firms deploy increasingly sophisticated digital tools to surveil kids and profit from their data.”
The two agencies’ complaint alleges that even in “Kids Mode,” a supposedly safer version of the app, TikTok collected personal information like email addresses without parental consent. Additionally, the lawsuit said that when parents attempted to have their children’s accounts deleted, TikTok often failed to honor these requests.
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, said: “The Justice Department is committed to upholding parents’ ability to protect their children’s privacy. 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.”
“TikTok knowingly and repeatedly violated kids’ privacy, threatening the safety of millions of children across the country. The FTC will continue to use the full scope of its authorities to protect children online.”
Lina M. Khan, Federal Trade Commission
The Justice Department further stressed the seriousness of the alleged violations, with Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer saying: “The Department is deeply concerned that TikTok has continued to collect and retain children’s personal information despite a court order barring such conduct. 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 lawsuit, which seeks civil penalties and injunctive relief, coincides with recent efforts to bolster online privacy protections for children. Just days before the lawsuit was filed, the US Senate passed a bill that would expand COPPA’s coverage to include teenagers up to 17 years old. This bill would also give parents and teens more control over their online data and potentially ban targeted advertising towards younger demographics.
The Senate also passed the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which offers children and parents with the tools and transparency to protect kids against online harms.
The latest move by the DOJ and the FTC marks an escalation of the US government’s efforts to regulate TikTok. Just last month, the DOJ defended a new law that would force TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to divest its stake in the platform or face a ban in the country. In a filing to the US Court of Appeals, the DOJ argued that TikTok poses a significant national security risk, citing concerns about the app’s potential to be used by the Chinese government to collect sensitive data on Americans and spread propaganda.
The filing was in response to TikTok’s lawsuit filed in May, calling the new law “unconstitutional.”
“For the first time in history, Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban, and bars every American from participating in a unique online community with more than 1 billion people worldwide,” TikTok said at the time.
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