Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton today filed a lawsuit against the social media giant TikTok for allegedly sharing the personal data of young people, a violation of the state’s new child safety law.
That law, the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act, or SCOPE, is part of a wider push by U.S. politicians to protect kids from becoming victims of the darker side of technology. Child safety online has over the last few years become one of the hot-button topics, leading to tech CEOs being grilled in front of Congress and various official reports denouncing how tech firms do business.
The law, which only went into effect in September this year, is similar to child safety legislation recently introduced by other states, including New York. These laws hope to protect children from deceptive or harmful technology while making it illegal to share a young person’s data without their parents’ or guardians’ consent.
It’s the last part on data sharing that has gotten TikTok into trouble in Texas.
“I will continue to hold TikTok and other big tech companies accountable for exploiting Texas children and failing to prioritize minors’ online safety and privacy,” Paxton said in a press release today. “Texas law requires social media companies to take steps to protect kids online and requires them to provide parents with tools to do the same. TikTok and other social media companies cannot ignore their duties under Texas law.”
Paxton claims that TikTok hasn’t done enough to create features in its app that will ensure kids have to verify their identities with a parent or guardian in the mix. TikTok does have such a feature, “Family Pairing,” but the lawsuit alleges it isn’t sufficient and does not “allow them to control or limit most of a known minor’s privacy and account settings.”
According to the lawsuit, this includes parents or guardians not being able to prevent TikTok from “sharing, disclosing, and selling of a known minor’s personal identifying information” nor does it give them the “ability to display targeted advertising to a known minor.”
“We strongly disagree with these allegations and, in fact, we offer robust safeguards for teens and parents, including family pairing, all of which are publicly available,” TikTok said in a statement shared on X. “We stand by the protections we provide families.”
It goes with saying that none of this will help TikTok in its mission to survive being banned in the U.S. after being accused of sharing data with the Chinese government.