TikTok to pay $400m to settle US child privacy lawsuit

TikTok’s child data case ends in huge settlement

The deal was announced by the Department of Justice on Friday, bringing an end to a lawsuit first brought in 2024 under former President Joe Biden. The case centred on claims that TikTok and ByteDance collected “vast amounts of data” from millions of users under the age of 13.

Prosecutors said this went against the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a federal law introduced in 2000 which sets rules for the collection of children's information online.

TikTok will pay $300m immediately, while the other $100m is dependent on the government withdrawing a separate agreement involving the Federal Trade Commission. That consent decree dates back to 2019 and relates to Musical.ly, TikTok's predecessor.

Musical.ly had previously been ordered to pay a $5.7m fine and put measures in place requiring parental consent for children under 13 to use the service.

What the TikTok settlement says about child safety online

"Children and parents are better protected today than they were when this case began," assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said.

The Justice Department said TikTok has gone through “significant changes” since the case was originally filed, including changes to its ownership, privacy policies and the safeguards available to younger users.

At $400m, the settlement is also much larger than previous COPPA cases. YouTube paid $170m in 2019, while Epic Games was ordered to pay $275m in 2022.

The situation also highlights questions over how effectively online child protection rules are being enforced elsewhere.

JOE previously found more than 50 porn websites without age verification, despite the UK's online child protection law, while further reporting found that age verification systems on adult websites can be bypassed within seconds.

The Justice Department has not announced any further action against TikTok as part of the settlement, meaning attention is now turning towards Meta.

The company is currently facing a separate COPPA case, with a jury trial beginning this week after attorneys general from 29 US states accused it of breaking the law.