TikTok Sued by U.S. for Allegedly Breaking Children’s Privacy Law

TikTok was sued by the U.S. for allegedly collecting data on children in violation of a federal online privacy act, three months after the popular video app sued the government over a law that could ban it across the country.

In a suit filed Friday in California federal court, the Justice Department claimed the app, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance Ltd., failed to make updates to ensure it wasn’t gathering the data after reaching a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission in 2019.

In the settlement, TikTok agreed to pay $5.7 million for failing to obtain parental consent before collecting information about kids under 13, as required by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. The 1998 statute limits how websites and online services can collect, use and disclose information from kids.

“TikTok knowingly and repeatedly violated kids’ privacy, threatening the safety of millions of children,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement.

The US is seeking penalties as high as $51,744 per violation per day, which could add up to hundreds of millions of dollars if the government prevails.

It’s the latest legal volley over the video sharing platform, which has faced criticism about data security and ties between ByteDance and the Chinese government. President Joe Biden in April signed a law that would ban TikTok unless it is sold by January 2025. The measure is meant to address national security concerns that Beijing could access user data or influence what’s seen on the app.

Donald Trump, who as president unsuccessfully sought to ban TikTok or force its sale, is now speaking out for it as he courts young voters in his bid to regain the White House. Trump, who joined TikTok in June and has a substantial following on the app, says a ban would only help rivals like Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook.

ByteDance says it is independent of the Chinese government and has challenged the April law in court.

Despite the 2019 settlement, the government alleges, TikTok allowed users to bypass inputting an age when creating an account, even though employees flagged that the practice could violate the children’s privacy law. The company’s reviewers spent an average of just five to seven seconds looking over each account to determine whether it belonged to a child, the US claims. TikTok collected more information than it needed, shared that data with partners like Meta and made it difficult for parents to request account deletions, according to the complaint.

The Justice Department filed Friday’s complaint on behalf of the FTC, which investigated the case. It is narrower than what the FTC recommended, after the department opted to strike claims that TikTok deceived US consumers by failing to inform them that Beijing-based employees of ByteDance would have access to their personal and financial information. It struck those allegations to avoid complications in a different federal lawsuit involving the company.

In June the FTC took the rare step of publicly announcing that it had referred a case on TikTok to the department. The agency has filed a number of lawsuits against popular websites and apps for allegedly violating the children’s privacy law. Microsoft Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and Epic Games, the maker of the popular Fortnite, have all settled recent FTC suits on kids’ privacy.

Top photo: Signage for ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok app is displayed on a smartphone in an arranged photograph taken in Hong Kong, China, on Tuesday, July 7, 2020. Photographer: Lam Yik/Bloomberg.