By Chibuzor Alli
TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, have agreed to pay $400m to the United States government to settle allegations that the platform violated children’s privacy laws.
The settlement, one of the largest over children’s privacy, followed a 2024 lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice under former President Joe Biden.
The US government alleged that TikTok and ByteDance collected “vast amounts of data” on millions of users under the age of 13.
The action was said to have violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, a federal law enacted in 2000.
Assistant Attorney General, Brett Shumate, said, “Children and parents are better protected today than they were when this case began.”
Under the terms of the agreement, TikTok and ByteDance will immediately pay the DOJ $300m, while another $100m will be paid when the government vacates a 2019 consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission.
The 2019 decree required TikTok’s predecessor, Musical.ly, to pay a $5.7m fine over alleged COPPA violations and ensure it obtained parental consent for users below 13.
The Justice Department did not detail any further action against TikTok beyond the fine but said the platform had “undergone significant changes” since the lawsuit was filed, including changes to its ownership, privacy practices and controls for young users.
When the lawsuit was filed, US attorneys said more than 170 million teenagers were using TikTok and alleged that the app was “directed to children.”
They also accused the platform of failing to effectively determine the ages of users or obtain parental consent for those below the legal age.
The lawsuit predates last year’s split of TikTok’s US business and operations from its original China-based structure, but the settlement only involves TikTok’s operations in China.
ByteDance, a privately held company, was most recently valued by investors at $550bn.
In 2024, former President Biden pushed for TikTok to either be banned or have its US operations divested.
President Donald Trump later supported the divestment of the app, which occurred last year.
TikTok’s US operations are now 81 per cent owned by a consortium of investors, while ByteDance retains a 19 per cent stake.
Other companies that have paid penalties to the US government for COPPA violations include Google’s YouTube, which paid $170m in 2019, and Epic Games, which paid $275m in 2022.
Meta is also facing penalties that could exceed hundreds of billions of dollars over alleged COPPA violations brought by attorneys general from 29 US states.
A jury trial in the lawsuit started this week, with Meta accused of targeting child users and profiting from them.
A at the time the report was gather representative of TikTok did not respond to Press men for comment.
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