Justice Dept. Sues TikTok Over Data Gathering on Children
LOS ANGELES — The Justice Department sued TikTok and its Chinese parent company Friday over accusations of violating privacy laws by collecting data on children who use the short-form video app.
TikTok allegedly allows underage children to establish accounts without their parents’ consent.
It also is suspected by the U.S. government of connections with Chinese spying efforts against Americans.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Central California says TikTok Inc. and its parent ByteDance Ltd. violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
The federal law limits the gathering of online information from children under 16 years old. For children under 13 years old, parental consent is required.
The law is enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, which also referred TikTok to the Justice Department for the lawsuit filed Friday. Earlier, the FTC ordered TikTok to stop gathering children’s data.
“The [Justice] Department is deeply concerned that TikTok has continued to collect and retain children’s personal information despite a court order barring such conduct,” acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer said to explain reasons for the lawsuit.
TikTok is a video-sharing social networking service that allows users to post videos that typically display dance, comedy or education. It is the second-most-popular online platform for American teens, behind YouTube.
TikTok has about 170 million U.S. users. They have included former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, both of whom posted videos to advance their presidential campaigns.
TikTok denied wrongdoing, saying in a statement that many of the Justice Department’s allegations “relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed.”
The company said it provides “age-appropriate experiences with stringent safeguards, proactively remove[s] suspected underage users and [has] voluntarily launched features such as default screentime limits, Family Pairing and additional privacy protections for minors.”
The lawsuit is the second time the FTC has taken regulatory action against TikTok or its predecessor, Musical.ly.
In 2019, the FTC reached a settlement in which Musical.ly paid $5.7 million and agreed to take corrective measures to protect demographic information of child users. It also required the company to remove videos posted by children under 13 years old.
The Justice Department lawsuit says TikTok violated the agreement through “deficient and ineffectual internal policies and processes for identifying and deleting TikTok accounts created by children.”
The Justice Department acknowledged that TikTok tries to protect children but they are able to retain their accounts unless they make “an explicit admission of age.” Human reviewers averaged only five to seven seconds to determine whether an account belonged to a child, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit against TikTok is part of a broader effort by the federal government to rein in the power of social media companies over private user data. Other efforts were directed against Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
FTC Chair Lina Khan said her agency would “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.”
An issue contributing to U.S. government anger toward TikTok is its affiliation with parent company ByteDance.
ByteDance has a strategic partnership with the Chinese Ministry of Public Security. As part of the partnership, ByteDance agreed to cooperate with the Ministry of Public Security on unspecified “offline activities.”
Members of Congress have voiced concerns TikTok poses a national security threat by potentially exposing Americans’ personal data to the Chinese government. TikTok denies it has shared personal data with Chinese officials.
President Joe Biden signed legislation in April requiring TikTok to cut ties with ByteDance by Jan. 19 or to be banned from the U.S. market. TikTok sued to block enforcement of the legislation. Its challenge is pending in U.S. District Court.
The case is United States of America v. ByteDance Ltd. in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
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