TikTok and its former Chinese parent company ByteDance have agreed to pay $400 million to settle allegations by the US Department of Justice that the short-form video app violated children's online privacy. This was reported by infohub.kz.
The Justice Department sued TikTok and ByteDance in 2024 for allegedly failing to protect children's privacy and illegally collecting their information. The defendants were accused of violating a law that requires online services aimed at children to obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from users under the age of 13.
Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said the department's priority "is ensuring that children are protected online and that companies entrusted with their personal information meet their legal obligations."
TikTok did not immediately comment on the matter.
Under the settlement, TikTok will pay $300 million immediately and an additional $100 million upon entry of an order vacating a prior consent decree entered with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2019 against TikTok's predecessor, Musical.ly. As part of that consent agreement, the FTC had noted that TikTok, then known as Musical.ly, knew that young children used the app and had failed to obtain parental consent to collect their names, email addresses, and other personal information. The company paid a fine of $5.7 million.
In January, ByteDance agreed to establish a majority American-owned joint venture to secure US data and avoid a ban on the app used by more than 200 million Americans. The government noted that since the complaint was filed, TikTok has undergone significant changes to its ownership, management, compliance functions, and privacy practices.
The Justice Department said the settlement "ensures that American families continue to benefit from stronger protections without the delay and uncertainty of protracted litigation." The TikTok US joint venture said in a court filing that it requires all users to enter their date of birth to use the site.
TikTok said it has developed sophisticated age-moderation systems that identify children under 13 who misrepresented their age. The court filing also said that TikTok has hundreds of personnel trained in underage moderation and, as a result, deletes tens of thousands of underage accounts.