TikTok has agreed to pay $400 million ($293 million pounds) to the U.S. Department of Justice to end a lawsuit alleging its platform violated children’s privacy.
The deal stems from a 2024 suit that claimed TikTok and its parent company ByteDance collected “vast amounts of data” on millions of users under the age of 13, a violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
The same law has been the subject of lawsuits against other tech giants, including Meta’s Instagram and Facebook, which face penalties that could reach hundreds of billions of dollars from 29 U.S. states.
Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said that the settlement protects children and parents better than when the case began.
Other companies have paid hefty fines for COPPA breaches: YouTube paid $170 million in 2019, and Epic Games paid $275 million in 2022.
The agreement requires TikTok and ByteDance to pay $300 million immediately, with an additional $100 million due when the government drops a 2019 Federal Trade Commission consent decree. This decree had previously tied Musical.ly, TikTok’s predecessor, to a $5.7 million fine for COPPA violations.
In the filing, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said TikTok’s platform was “directed to children” and did not effectively verify user age or obtain parental consent for under‑age users.
Under the settlement, TikTok acknowledges significant changes in ownership and privacy practices, with its U.S. operations now 81% owned by a consortium of investors and ByteDance holding a 19% stake.
For more context, see related coverage on Meta’s child‑privacy trial and the broader US‑China TikTok deal, which examines future user implications.
