TikTok settles children's privacy case with $400 million payment
Tiktok has reached an agreement with the US Department of Justice in its privacy case against the social media platform. The company had been accused of violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which requires services aimed at children under the age of 13 to obtain parental consent before collecting their personal information. The social media giant has agreed to pay $300 million…
The US Justice Department recently secured a $400 million settlement with TikTok over a child privacy lawsuit, marking one of the highest recoveries in a Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) case. In 2024, the Justice Department sued TikTok, alleging the app failed to prevent children from joining and unlawfully collected their personal data, in breach of COPPA.
Part of the settlement, TikTok will pay $300 million upfront, with an additional $100 million tied to a 2019 Federal Trade Commission order concerning ByteDance's acquisition of Musical.ly, merged with TikTok in 2017. The lawsuit in 2024 stemmed from the 2019 agreement, claiming TikTok continued to gather data from children, including email addresses, phone numbers, and location information, without complying with parent requests to delete their children's information.
Despite claiming many allegations were inaccurate or addressed, TikTok implemented changes to enhance safeguards for younger users, improve age-related controls, and strengthen parental oversight. Earlier this year, TikTok announced plans to offload its US assets to American investors such as Oracle and Silver Lake. No liability determination has been made yet.
Written by urgent.news from Egypt Independent's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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