CNN reports that the U.S. government has filed a lawsuit against TikTok and its parent firm ByteDance alleging violations of the Children's Online Privacy and Protection Act after failing to prevent usage among youths younger than 13 and illegally gathering their personal information.
Aside from not implementing adequate safeguards to prevent sign-ups from children younger than 13 without parental consent until late 2020, TikTok also has a "convoluted" data deletion process and has not adhered to parents' requests to remove data collected from their children, according to the lawsuit, which was filed after a Federal Trade Commission referral.
"TikTok knowingly and repeatedly violated kids’ privacy, threatening the safety of millions of children across the country," said FTC Chair Lina Khan. Such accusations have been dismissed by TikTok.
"...[W]e offer age-appropriate experiences with stringent safeguards, proactively remove suspected underage users, and have voluntarily launched features such as default screentime limits, Family Pairing, and additional privacy protections for minors," Khan said.
