US authorities accused TikTok of violating children’s privacy laws

The US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in which it accused the administration of the short video service TikTok and its owner, ByteDance, of violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

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The platform, according to the department, allows children to create accounts without the knowledge of their parents; collects and stores personal data of minors, including their email addresses, phone numbers and location data; and also does not comply with parents’ requests to delete information about their children. The basis for filing the lawsuit was an agreement between TikTok and the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) – the platform administration agreed to settle charges of illegal collection of personal data of children under 13 years of age. As part of the agreement, TikTok was required to take specific steps to comply with COPPA, but the Justice Department says it continues to violate both the law and the 2019 court order.

The app has a “Kids Mode” for users under 13, but the platform still “knowingly allows children under 13 to create accounts in TikTok’s standard mode and collects personal information from these children without first notifying parents or obtaining verifiable parental consent.” the lawsuit says. The FTC began reviewing potential COPPA violations by TikTok earlier this year, and the Justice Department filed a statement of claim at the request of the Federal Trade Commission. “TikTok has knowingly and repeatedly violated children’s privacy, compromising the safety of millions of minors across the country,” said FTC Chair Lina Khan.

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«We disagree with these allegations, many of which relate to past events and practices that are factually incorrect or have been corrected. We are proud of our efforts to protect children and will continue to update and improve the platform. To do this, we offer age-appropriate modes with strict security measures, actively remove users suspected of being age inappropriate, and we have voluntarily launched features such as default activity time limits, Family Pairing, and additional privacy protections for minors.” — said TikTok representative Michael Hughes.

But the measures taken by the platform administration were not enough to protect children under 13 years of age from unauthorized access to the application. In particular, the lawsuit alleges, “at least until 2020,” when a child tried to register an account but was rejected after indicating a birth date that indicated he was under 13 years of age, the TikTok app did not prevent him from trying again with another date of birth, “even though by that time [TikTok] already knew from the user’s previously provided date of birth that the user was a child.”

If a parent discovered their child’s account, the platform administration “failed to create a simple procedure for parents to submit a request to delete” the child’s personal data, the document says, and the existing process is described as “confusing.” And even when parents submitted a request, TikTok “often did not fulfill it.” The DOJ is asking the court to impose administrative sanctions on the defendant and issue an order to prevent future violations of COPPA.