Uncle Sam sues TikTok for 'extensive' data harvesting from millions of kids

Remember that promise to be nice? You broke it, say prosecutors

The US government is suing TikTok, claiming the mega-popular app broke the law by playing fast and loose with millions of kids' data and privacy.

In a civil federal lawsuit [PDF] filed in California today, Dept of Justice prosecutors alleged TikTok and its Beijing-based parent ByteDance violated America's Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and related rules, and are seeking fines and banning orders.

According to the DoJ, the video-sharing app's makers have for the past five years:

• Knowingly permitted children to create regular TikTok accounts and to create, view, and share short-form videos and messages with adults and others on the regular TikTok platform.
• The defendants collected and retained a wide variety of personal information from these children without notifying or obtaining consent from their parents.
• Even for accounts that were created in “Kids Mode” (a pared-back version of TikTok intended for children under 13), the defendants unlawfully collected and retained children’s email addresses and other types of personal information.
• Further, when parents discovered their children’s accounts and asked the defendants to delete the accounts and information in them, the defendants frequently failed to honor those requests.
• The defendants also had deficient and ineffectual internal policies and processes for identifying and deleting TikTok accounts created by children.

Collecting and using personal info of the under-13s without parental consent, as TikTok is alleged to have done, is illegal under COPPA, among other things.

American officials said that following earlier legal action brought by the government, TikTok promised in 2019, back then in its Musical.ly form, that it would not break that privacy law, and yet it allegedly continued to do so.

The app is used by roughly 170 million people in the US, and more than a billion worldwide.

"TikTok is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world," prosecutors noted in a statement.

"The defendants’ COPPA violations have resulted in millions of children under 13 using the regular TikTok app, subjecting them to extensive data collection and allowing them to interact with adult users and access adult content."

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton added: "This action is necessary to prevent the defendants, who are repeat offenders and operate on a massive scale, from collecting and using young children's private information without any parental consent or control."

TikTok, meanwhile, said the DoJ's numerous gripes were either wrong, or right albeit about shortcomings that had already been fixed up.

"We disagree with these allegations, many of which relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed," a spokesperson told The Register.

We are proud of our efforts to protect children, and we will continue to update and improve the platform

"We are proud of our efforts to protect children, and we will continue to update and improve the platform.

"To that end, we offer age-appropriate experiences with stringent safeguards, proactively remove suspected underage users, and have voluntarily launched features such as default screentime limits, Family Pairing, and additional privacy protections for minors."

Congress passed a law this year to force ByteDance to offload TikTok to a US-approved buyer or have the app banned in the states, legislation the Chinese parent is fighting hard against.

Those lawmakers fear TikTok could be used by Beijing to spy on and manipulate millions of Americans, including children. ®