The Department of Justice sued TikTok and its parent company ByteDance on Friday for allegedly violating children’s online privacy law.
The agency accused the popular social media app of allowing children under the age of 13 to create accounts, collecting data on those children and failing to comply with parents’ requests to delete the accounts and information.
TikTok’s actions would violate the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), as well as a 2019 settlement agreement with the app then known as Musical.ly, according to the lawsuit.
“To put an end to TikTok’s unlawful massive-scale invasions of children’s privacy, the United States brings this lawsuit seeking injunctive relief, civil penalties, and other relief,” the filing reads.
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