TikTok settles US child privacy lawsuit with $400m payment
The settlement resolves a 2024 Department of Justice lawsuit alleging that TikTok and ByteDance breached federal privacy laws by collecting data from minors without parental consent.
TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, have agreed to pay US$400 million to the United States to settle a lawsuit alleging the platform violated children’s privacy. The deal marks one of the largest settlements ever for child privacy violations in the US, resolving claims that the short-video app collected "vast amounts of data" on millions of users under the age of 13 without obtaining parental consent.
The lawsuit was filed by the Department of Justice in 2024 under former President Joe Biden. It alleged that TikTok and ByteDance breached the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a federal law enacted in 2000. At the time, US attorneys noted that more than 170 million teenagers were using the platform, which they described as being "directed to children," yet the app had failed to effectively gauge user age or secure parental consent for underage users.
Under the terms of the agreement, TikTok and ByteDance will immediately pay US$300 million to the Department of Justice. A further US$100 million is payable when the government vacates a 2019 consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission. The settlement specifically involves TikTok’s operations in China, distinct from the newly separated US business entity.
Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate stated that children and parents are "better protected today than they were when this case began." The Department of Justice noted that since the lawsuit was filed, TikTok has "undergone significant changes" to its ownership, privacy practices, and platform controls for young users. The department did not detail any further action against TikTok beyond the financial penalties.
The agreement also includes a requirement for Musical.ly, the predecessor to ByteDance, to pay a US$5.7 million fine for COPPA violations and to ensure parental consent for users under 13. This follows a 2024 push by former President Biden to ban or divest the app’s US operations, a move later supported by President Donald Trump. Last year, TikTok’s US operations were divested, with 81 per cent now owned by a consortium of investors and ByteDance maintaining a 19 per cent stake.
Other companies have faced similar penalties for COPPA violations, including Google’s YouTube, which paid US$170 million in 2019, and Epic Games, which paid US$275 million in 2022. A representative of TikTok did not respond to requests for comment.
