The Justice Department sues TikTok for breaking child privacy laws

TikTok wrongfully collected personal information about children and failed to comply with requests to delete it, the DoJ said.

The US Department of Justice is suing TikTok for violating a child privacy law and violating a 2019 agreement with the Federal Trade Commission for previous privacy violations. The lawsuit stems from an earlier investigation into the company by the Federal Trade Commission, which referred its privacy case to the DoJ earlier this year.

The FTC had been looking into whether TikTok had violated the terms of an earlier privacy settlement with Musical.ly, which was acquired by ByteDance prior to the launch of TikTok. According to the FTC, the investigation found that TikTok had “flagrantly” violated both the 2019 settlement and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

By Karissa Bell

Full story at Engadget.