The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have sued TikTok and parent ByteDance for violating child privacy laws.

The US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) is designed to protect the privacy of and personal information of minors under 13 years of age, as the DOJ highlights:

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. It also requires website operators to delete personal information collected from children at their parents’ request.

The DOJ originally sued TikTok predecessor Musical.ly in 2019, resulting in court-ordered measures that TikTok must abide by to comply with COPPA. The DOJ says that TikTok has ignored the previous agreement and knowingly violated COPPA requirements:

According to the complaint, from 2019 to the present, TikTok 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.

As a result of TikTok’s actions, the DOJ says millions of children’s data has been collected, and children have been allowed to interact with adults on the platform, as well as access adult content.

“The Department is deeply concerned that TikTok has continued to collect and retain children’s personal information despite a court order barring such conduct,” said Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer. “With this action, the Department seeks to ensure that TikTok honors its obligation to protect children’s privacy rights and parents’ efforts to protect their children.”

“TikTok knowingly and repeatedly violated kids’ privacy, threatening the safety of millions of children across the country,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. “The FTC will continue to use the full scope of its authorities to protect children online — especially as firms deploy increasingly sophisticated digital tools to surveil kids and profit from their data.”

TikTok has a long history of violating child privacy, as well as the privacy of its users in general. The Center for Digital Democracy and the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood filed a complaint against the company in 2020 over child privacy. The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) investigated TikTok in early 2021, finding the company was violating the privacy of EU children.

“In just a few years, TikTok has become one of the most popular social media apps with millions of users across Europe,” Monique Goyens, Director General of BEUC, said at the time. “But TikTok is letting its users down by breaching their rights on a massive scale. We have discovered a whole series of consumer rights infringements and therefore filed a complaint against TikTok.

“Children love TikTok but the company fails to keep them protected. We do not want our youngest ones to be exposed to pervasive hidden advertising and unknowingly turned into billboards when they are just trying to have fun.

“Together with our members – consumer groups from across Europe – we urge authorities to take swift action. They must act now to make sure TikTok is a place where consumers, especially children, can enjoy themselves without being deprived of their rights.”

With the US already passing a ban on TikTok, the deadline for which is rapidly approaching, TikTok’s systemic abuse of privacy—and especially the privacy of its most vulnerable users—is making one of the strongest cases yet that the platform poses a serious threat.