The Justice Department is suing TikTok for allegedly violating children's online privacy laws

On Friday, the United States Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint against TikTok and its parent firm ByteDance, saying that the corporation violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act on numerous occasions.

The present legal action was brought before the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, which is home to TikTok's American corporate office.

The lawsuit demands that the businesses pay fines to the court for the infractions, naming ByteDance, TikTok's parent firm in China.

The government said in the complaint that it was suing to “put an end to TikTok’s unlawful massive-scale invasions of children’s privacy.”

In the lawsuit, the authorities claimed TikTok intentionally gathered personal information from millions of minors who were under 13 and let them use the app to engage with adults and adult content.

"For years, defendants have knowingly allowed children under 13 to create and use TikTok accounts without their parents' knowledge or consent, have collected extensive data from those children, and have failed to comply with parents' requests to delete their children's accounts and personal information," the 31-page civil lawsuit said.

Together with "app activity data, device information, mobile carrier information, and app information — which they combine with persistent identifiers and use to amass profiles on children," TikTok is reportedly gathering data on minors through restricted accounts.

According to the filing, TikTok moderators did not spend more than five to seven seconds on average examining whether profiles belonged to children. 

"As a result, for years millions of American children under 13 have been using TikTok and defendants have been collecting and retaining children's personal information," the lawsuit stated.

In its request, the government requested monetary penalties for past infractions of the child privacy statute, a permanent injunction against future violations, and "any additional relief as the Court determines to be just and proper."

TikTok refuted the lawsuit's accusations in a response.

"We disagree with these allegations, many of which relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed. We are proud of our efforts to protect children, and we will continue to update and improve the platform," the statement said. "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."

TikTok has also come under fire internationally for its handling of children. For failing to protect teenage users' privacy, TikTok was fined 345 million euros by the European Union in September. After discovering that over a million children under the age of 13 had registered for the app, a British regulator punished the company in April 2023.

With over 170 million users, TikTok is the subject of the latest legal dispute between the US government and the platform. A bipartisan measure that ByteDance, the parent firm of TikTok based in China, was forced to sell or risk being banned in the United States earlier this year by President Biden's signature. TikTok has filed a federal court challenge to that law.