The social media app TikTok is accused of breaking laws about children’s internet privacy by the Justice Department, which filed a lawsuit against the Chinese-owned parent business on Friday.
Brian Boynton, the head of the DOJ Civil Division, confirmed the accusation in a statement.
The complaint is the most recent step taken by the US against TikTok and its Chinese parent firm due to concerns that the latter is manipulating content to potentially hurt Americans while unlawfully gathering massive quantities of data on Americans for the Chinese government.
TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, were also charged by the government for “failing to comply with parents’ requests to delete their children’s accounts and information.”
The FTC began assessing that compliance in 2019, after a $5.7 million settlement with TikTok’s predecessor Musical.ly for breaching COPPA — the record biggest fine at the time in the law’s 20+ year existence.
“This action is necessary to prevent the defendants, who are repeat offenders and operate on a massive scale, from collecting and using young children’s private information without any parental consent or control,” Boynton said.
The company said it offers “age-appropriate experiences with stringent safeguards” and removes users who are suspected to be underage.
“We are proud of our efforts to protect children, and we will continue to update and improve the platform,” the spokesperson added.
According to the DOJ, TikTok knowingly allowed youngsters to register regular TikTok accounts, which they then used to make and exchange short-form videos and messages with adults and others on the regular site.
TikTok obtained personal information from these youngsters without their parents’ consent.
“TikTok knowingly and repeatedly violated kids’ privacy, threatening the safety of millions of children across the country,” stated FTC Chair Lina Khan, whose organisation forwarded the matter to the Justice Department in June.
We earlier reported that the Department of Justice (DOJ) accuses tech giant, Apple, of stifling competition to increase profits and unlawfully monopolising the US smartphone market.
