TikTok to Pay $400m to Settle US Child Privacy Lawsuit

The case stems from a 2024 suit filed under former President Joe Biden, alleging TikTok and ByteDance collected "vast amounts of data" on millions of users under the age of 13 — a breach of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the federal law enacted in 2000. TikTok will pay $300m immediately and a further $100m once the government vacates a 2019 consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission entered against its predecessor, Musical.ly, Variety reported. That earlier case forced Musical.ly to pay a $5.7m fine and seek parental consent for under-13s.

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 department noted that TikTok has "undergone significant changes" since the suit was filed, including to its ownership, privacy practices and platform controls for young users. The sum dwarfs earlier COPPA penalties: Google’s YouTube paid $170m in 2019 and Epic Games $275m in 2022. Enforcement looks patchier on this side of the Atlantic, where JOE has found over 50 porn websites with no age verification despite the UK’s online child protection law, and reported that age verification systems can be bypassed in seconds.

The justice department set out no further action against TikTok beyond the payment. Attention now turns to Meta, whose jury trial over COPPA violations alleged by attorneys general in 29 US states began this week.