TikTok’s long-running fight with the US government over children’s data now carries a price tag of up to $400 million.
The company and its parent, ByteDance, agreed to the settlement to resolve a Justice Department lawsuit alleging that they violated federal children’s privacy protections.
Under the agreement, TikTok will pay a $300 million civil penalty, with another $100 million due if the court vacates a 2019 consent decree involving Musical.ly, TikTok’s predecessor.
The Justice Department described the settlement as one of the largest recoveries ever secured under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA.
The 2024 lawsuit alleged that TikTok allowed children under 13 to create accounts, collected their personal information without the required parental consent and failed to honor some parents’ requests to delete their children’s accounts and data. The allegations included the collection of information such as email addresses, phone numbers and location data.
“This settlement is a major victory for American children and parents,” Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. said in the Justice Department’s announcement.
TikTok disputed the allegations when the lawsuit was filed, saying some involved “past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed,” according to CNN.
The Justice Department emphasized that the claims resolved by the settlement remain allegations and that there has been no determination of liability.
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TikTok has changed since the lawsuit
The government said TikTok has made significant changes since the complaint was filed, including changes to its ownership, management, compliance operations and privacy practices. The company has also introduced stronger safeguards for younger users, improved age-related controls and expanded parental oversight, the Justice Department said.
Reuters reported that TikTok’s US joint venture requires users to provide their date of birth and has systems designed to identify children under 13 who misrepresent their age. The company has also trained hundreds of employees in underage moderation, according to a court filing cited by Reuters.
The settlement also closes a chapter connected to Musical.ly. In 2019, the predecessor paid a $5.7 million COPPA penalty after regulators alleged it knowingly allowed young children to use the service without obtaining parental consent. The settlement lands as regulators and state governments intensify scrutiny of how major social platforms handle children’s data and online safety.
TikTok is not the first major technology company to face a significant COPPA penalty. Google’s YouTube paid $170 million in 2019, while Epic Games agreed to pay $275 million in 2022 over alleged COPPA violations. Meta is also facing a federal multidistrict lawsuit involving 29 states over alleged harms to young users.
The settlement shows that financial penalties are only one part of the risk for platforms serving young users. Weak age-assurance, parental-consent and data-deletion systems can also lead to years of regulatory scrutiny, expensive compliance changes and lasting reputational damage.
Read more: Meta was ordered to pay $567 million and overhaul protections for young users, showing how youth-safety enforcement can reshape both platform operations and compliance costs.