The Justice Department sued TikTok on Friday, accusing the company of violating the Children’s Online Privacy Act and contradicting a settlement it reached with another government agency.
The complaint, filed jointly with the Federal Trade Commission in California federal court, comes as the US and a prominent social media company are embroiled in another legal battle that will determine whether – or how – TikTok will continue. to work in that country.
The latest case centers on allegations that TikTok, a social media platform popular among young users, and its China-based parent company ByteDance violated federal law requiring apps to and child-oriented websites obtain parental consent before collecting minor children’s information. 13. It also said that the companies failed to honor the requests of parents who wanted their children’s accounts to be deleted, and chose not to delete the accounts even when the firms knew they belonged to children. under 13 years of age.
“This action is important to prevent defendants, who are repeat offenders and operate on a large scale, from collecting and using the private information of minors without parental consent or control,” Brian M. Boynton , head of the Department of Justice’s Public Affairs Division, said in a statement.
TikTok says it disagrees with the allegations, “many of which relate to past incidents and practices that are inaccurate or have not been resolved.”
“We provide age-appropriate experiences with tougher safeguards, we remove suspected underage users and we’ve voluntarily introduced features like screen time limits, Family Mode, and advanced security. more privacy for children,” the company said.
The US decided to file a lawsuit after an investigation by the FTC that looked into whether the companies were following a previous decision related to TikTok’s predecessor, Musical.ly.
In 2019, the federal government sued Musical.ly, saying it violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, by failing to notify parents about its collection and use of personal information for children under 13 years of age.
In the same year, Musical.ly – acquired by ByteDance in 2017 and merged with TikTok – agreed to pay $5.7 million to settle those charges. The two companies were also subject to a court order ordering them to comply with COPPA, which the government says has not happened.
In the complaint, the Department of Justice and the FTC accuse TikTok of knowingly allowing children to create accounts and store their information without notifying their parents. This trend extends to accounts created with “Kids Mode,” a version of TikTok for children under 13. This feature allows users to watch videos but prevents them from uploading content.
The two organizations allege the information collected includes activities on the app and other identifiers used to build user profiles. They also accused TikTok of sharing data with other companies – such as Meta’s Facebook and an analytics company called AppsFlyer – to encourage “Kids Mode” users to be on the platform more, a practice TikTok called “to retarget inactive users.”
The complaint alleges that TikTok also allowed children to create accounts without providing their age, or obtaining parental consent, by using credentials from third-party services. It classified these as “anonymous” reports, which the organizations say numbered in the millions.
After parents discovered some of their children’s accounts and asked for them to be deleted, government officials said TikTok asked them to do a concerted effort to shut them down and often did not honor the requests. theirs.
In general, the government said that TikTok used insufficient policies that could not prevent children’s accounts from spreading on its device and suggested that the company does not take this issue seriously. On at least one occasion since 2019, the complaint said that TikTok’s human administrators have spent five to seven seconds checking accounts that have been flagged as belonging to a child. It also says that TikTok and ByteDance have technology they can use to identify and remove children’s accounts, but don’t use them for that reason.
The alleged violations led to millions of children under the age of 13 using the popular TikTok app, which allows them to interact with adults and access adult content, the complaint said.
In March, an insider told the AP that an FTC investigation was looking into whether TikTok violated a section of the federal law that prohibits “unfair and deceptive” business practices by denying that people those in China have access to US user data.
Those charges were not included in the complaint, which asks the court to fine the companies and enter a preliminary injunction to prevent future violations.
Other social media companies have also come under fire for their handling of children’s information.
In 2019, Google and YouTube agreed to pay a $170 million settlement to settle allegations that the popular website collected children’s information without their parents’ consent.
And last fall, several US states sued Meta Platforms Inc., which owns Facebook and Instagram, for knowingly harming youth and contributing to the mental health problem of youth. deliberately features Instagram and Facebook that are addictive to children on its platforms. The lawsuit filed by 33 states alleges that Meta routinely collects data on children under the age of 13 without their parents’ consent, in violation of COPPA. Nine attorneys general are also filing cases in their states, bringing the total number of states taking action to 41 and Washington, DC.
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