US sues TikTok for collecting children’s data without parental permission

Department of Justice I’m suing TikTok It is accused of allowing children under the age of 13 to create accounts without parental permission and collect “extensive data” about them, in violation of US children’s privacy laws.

The DOJ alleges that TikTok violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by knowingly allowing children onto its platform through a “kids mode,” collecting their information, and failing to delete their accounts despite parental requests. When a child under 13 enters their age in the app, the app prompts them to enter a non-personally identifiable username and creates a kids mode account for them. However, the app does not notify or obtain parental consent. Children cannot upload videos in this mode, but they can view them. The DOJ alleges that TikTok collected some personal information, such as unique device identifiers and IP addresses, as part of this process.

The lawsuit claims that TikTok’s age-restricting technology is “deficient in several ways.” According to the lawsuit, under previous practice, TikTok would have required users to start the account creation process over again even if they had originally entered a birthdate indicating they were under 13. TikTok also allowed users to log in through Instagram or Google, which the DOJ claims would have classified the account as “age unknown.”

The Justice Department said it is difficult to determine the exact scale of the violations because TikTok allowed millions of children to use the platform but failed to comply with requirements in a 2019 injunction to keep records of its compliance with COPPA. The Justice Department is asking the court to prohibit TikTok from violating COPPA in the future and to pay civil penalties for each violation. Under the FTC Act, civil penalties can be as high as $51,744 per violation per day.

The Federal Trade Commission has taken credit for the investigation that led to the complaint. The agency announced in June that it had referred TikTok’s complaint to the DOJ after investigating potential violations under the FTC Act and COPPA. At the time, the FTC said it had “reason to believe” that TikTok “is violating or is about to violate the law.”

TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek said in a statement that the company disagrees with the DOJ’s allegations. “Many of the allegations are factually inaccurate or relate to past incidents and practices that have already been resolved. We are proud of our work to protect children, and we will continue to update and improve our platform. That includes providing age-appropriate experiences with rigorous safeguards, proactively removing users we suspect are minors, and voluntarily rolling out features like default screen time limits, family pairing, and additional privacy protections for minors.”