The Justice Department on Friday sued TikTok and its China-based owner ByteDance, saying the popular video app had violated a children’s privacy law by collecting data on millions of Americans younger than 13.
The app, which has 170 million U.S. users, made it too easy for children to create accounts and then collected data on those who did — a “massive-scale” violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, the DOJ said in a legal complaint.
Children could breeze through the company’s “age gates” by creating accounts through Google and Instagram, and the company sometimes “failed to comply” with parents’ requests to delete their children’s accounts, the DOJ said. Even TikTok’s “Kids Mode,” a simplified version designed for underage users, saved email addresses and other data.
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In June, the company said it was “disappointed the agency is pursuing litigation instead of continuing to work with us on a reasonable solution.”
The lawsuit comes five years after regulators fined TikTok’s predecessor, the lip-syncing app Musical.ly, $5.7 million on similar charges. TikTok agreed then to delete children’s data and enact company changes under a court order, which the DOJ claims TikTok began violating shortly after it took effect.
The DOJ is “deeply concerned that TikTok has continued to collect and retain children’s personal information despite a court order barring such conduct,” acting associate attorney general Benjamin C. mi said in a statement. “With this action, the Department seeks to ensure that TikTok honors its obligation to protect children’s privacy rights and parents’ efforts to protect their children.”
The Federal Trade Commission voted last month to refer the case to the DOJ. The complaint, filed in a California federal court, could lead to civil penalties of up to $51,000 per violation a day, per FTC rules.
The case is separate from a legal challenge, now playing out in a D.C. appeals court, regarding a law President Biden signedin April that would force ByteDance to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese buyer as soon as next year or have the app be banned nationwide.
TikTok has argued the law would violate constitutional free-speech rights; the DOJ countered last week that Americans “have no First Amendment right to TikTok.”