The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed a complaint against TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance alleging potential abuses of children’s privacy with the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The FTC announced that it is investigating TikTok and ByteDance’s compliance with a settlement order issued to video-sharing app Musical.ly in 2019. Musical.ly was acquired by ByteDance in 2017 and later integrated with TikTok in 2018.
The agency stated that its inquiry focused on probable violations of the FTC Act and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
The FTC also stated that it does not generally publish that it has referred a complaint to the DOJ, but that in this case, doing so was in the public interest.
COPPA limits how online services acquire, handle, and disclose personal information regarding children under 13 years old.
Upon a review of the settlement, the FTC said it investigated “additional potential violations of COPPA and the FTC Act” by TikTok.
“The investigation uncovered reason to believe named defendants are violating or are about to violate the law and that a proceeding is in the public interest, so the Commission has voted to refer a complaint to the DOJ,” the FTC said in a statement.
In response, a TikTok representative stated that the company disagreed with the accusations and had “been working with the FTC for more than a year to address its concerns.”
“We strongly disagree with the FTC’s allegations, many of which relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed,” TikTok said.
“We’re proud of and remain deeply committed to the work we’ve done to protect children and we will continue to update and improve our product.”
We earlier reported that TikTok, which has been under criticism from Washington for its supposed links to China, has pulled off a significant coup with the arrival of Donald Trump on the app.
