In its latest move by the President Joe Biden administration to increase pressure on TikTok, the United States government has sued TikTok over child privacy violations. The Chinese-owned short-video platform boasts around 170 million US users and already is fighting a new law that would force ByteDance to divest TikTok’s US assets by January 19 or face a ban.
“The Justice Department, together with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), today filed a civil lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against TikTok Inc., ByteDance Ltd., and their affiliates (together, TikTok) for violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and its implementing regulations (COPPA) in connection with the popular TikTok app,” the US Justice Department said in a statement.
The FTC is seeking penalties of up to $51,744 per violation per day from TikTok for improperly collecting data.
The COPPA prohibits website operators from knowingly collecting, using, or disclosing personal information from children under the age of 13, unless they provide notice to and obtain consent from those children’s parents.
Also, it requires website operators to delete personal information collected from children at their parents’ request.
The lawsuit reportedly stems from concerns that the platform is a medium for the Chinese government to collect sensitive American data and influence public opinion through content manipulation
It is to be noted that in 2019, the US government sued Musical.ly for COPPA violations, and since then the defendants have been subject to a court order requiring them to undertake specific measures to comply with COPPA.
Representative Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, said the suit underscores the importance of divesting TikTok from Chinese Communist Party control. “We simply cannot continue to allow our adversaries to harvest vast troves of Americans’ sensitive data,” he said.
As per the Department of Justice, TikTok collected personal information from these children without obtaining consent from their parents.