The US Department of Justice sues TikTok for illegally collecting children’s data without parental consent.
The DOJ has filed a case against TikTok and its owner, ByteDance. It accuses TikTok of gathering users’ personal information under 13 without parental permission, which is against COPPA regulation.
The Department mentions that since 2019, it allowed children to register outside of “Kids mode,” intended for users below 13. This lack of policy implementation has resulted in millions of young users’ data and privacy violations.
The case brought in the US District Court of Columbia states that Service and ByteDance were aware of these practices and still exercised them.
In addition, TikTok Violets another COPPA requirement: the failure to delete the user’s data at their request. It has accused the company of deceiving parents and users of its collected data. It did not provide the proper information about data collection and its purpose.
Consequences and responses
The DOJ is issuing civil penalties and an injunction to help prevent future law violations. The acting associate attorney general Benjamin C.
Mizer said:
The department is also aware that despite a prohibitory court order, TikTok continued to collect personal information from children. The case might help protect children’s privacy and enforce parental control over using TikTok.
In response, TikTok denied the allegations. It asserts that many allegations concern matters that the company no longer engages in. A service Spokesperson commented on the changes.
He affirmed:
“We commit to child safety and will keep enhancing the platform and measures for safety to the utmost.”
Not to forget that the DPC (Irish Data Protection Commission) also fined TikTok $368 million in September 2023. According to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, the platform violated children’s privacy. France’s Data Protection Authority also fined $5.4 million for insufficient cookie usage disclosure.
