Justice Department Sues TikTok for Allegedly Violating Child Privacy Law

The Justice Department and FTC filed a complaint alleging TikTok and its parent company obtained children’s data without parental consent.

A smartphone with a displayed TikTok logo is placed on a computer motherboard in this illustration taken February 23, 2023. The Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department filed a civil complaint alleging the platform violated children's privacy. Reuters/Dado Ruvic

Tiktok and its parent company ByteDance are facing a fresh lawsuit from President Joe Biden’s administration alleging that they failed to ensure data privacy for children using the social media platform.

Filed on Aug. 2, the civil complaint came from both the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice in the Central District of California. TikTok, the administration claimed, violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) and an associated FTC rule outlining how online services should handle data from children under 13 years of age.

According to the complaint, Tiktok breached a 2019 court order to resolve a similar lawsuit alleging violations of COPPA and its associated FTC rule.

Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin Mizer said in a press release: “The Department is deeply concerned that TikTok has continued to collect and retain children’s personal information despite a court order barring such conduct.”

DOJ alleged that TikTok bypassed parental consent in retaining children’s personal information, such as email addresses, and didn’t honor parents’ requests to delete children’s accounts. It added that TikTok’s internal policies were deficient in identifying and deleting children’s accounts on the platform.

“TikTok knowingly and repeatedly violated kids’ privacy, threatening the safety of millions of children across the country,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in the press release.

“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.”

A TikTok spokesperson denied the allegations in a statement emailed to The Epoch Times.

“We disagree with these allegations, many of which relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed,” the spokesperson said.

“We are proud of our efforts to protect children, and we will continue to update and improve 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.”

Permanent Injunction

The administration is requesting a permanent injunction along with civil penalties on each defendant, which includes various ByteDance and TikTok entities, for each violation of the FTC’s rule. According to the complaint, the defendants could face around $51,000 “for each violation of the [r]ule assessed after January 10, 2024.” The 2019 order imposed a $5.7 million penalty.

For years, TikTok has offered what DOJ called a “Kids Mode” whereby users younger than 13 can view videos but not create or upload them. According to the complaint, TikTok didn’t obtain parental consent for this mode and “knowingly allowed children under 13 to create accounts in the regular TikTok experience.”

While TikTok has an “age gate” asking a user’s birthday, the administration said that the gate is insufficient and that TikTok has known that younger users misrepresent their age when encountering it.

This complaint is the latest challenge against ByteDance, a Chinese internet company. Washington enacted a law in April requiring Bytedance divest from TikTok or else the app would be banned in the United States, a requirement that TikTok is challenging in court.

Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks at the Department of Justice in Washington, on Aug. 11, 2023. The department is defending a divestment law in TikTok v. Garland. Stephanie Scarbrough/AP Photo

TikTok asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to review the law’s constitutionality and issue a declaratory judgment that the law violates the Constitution. DOJ responded, in part by arguing that TikTok raised national security concerns that placed it outside of normal First Amendment protection.

A July 26 brief from DOJ said that it’s worried that Beijing could take control of “vast swaths of sensitive data from [TikTok’s] 170 million U.S. users” and “strategically deploy” the data “to undermine the United States’ security.”