Protection of children: already threatened with a ban, TikTok is sued once again in the United States

2024-08-03 12:35:54

TikTok is also in Washington’s sights. The US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on Friday against the popular app, already threatened with freezing in the United States, alleging “widespread violations of children’s privacy laws”.

Thanks to the platform of the Chinese group ByteDance, millions of children under the age of 13 have been subjected to “big data collection”, and they have “interacted with older users and accessed older content”, summarizes the ministry in a press release . According to the complaint, TikTok “intentionally” allows children to create accounts and navigate the social network used by 170 million people in the United States.

Since 2019, the app and the parent company “have collected and stored a lot of personal information about these young people without notifying their parents or getting their consent. Also for accounts created in Kids Mode (…),” the minister went on to explain. This legal action “is necessary to prevent children under the age of 13 from using the normal TikTok app,” Assistant Attorney General Brian Boynton, mentioned in the press release.

It is also necessary, he added, to prevent the defendants, “those who repeat offenders and operate on a large scale, to collect and use private data of children without parental consent or control.”

“Deep disagreement with FTC allegations”

The United States Consumer Protection Agency, FTC, has done it Report to the Ministry of Justice in May, because he “has reason to believe” that TikTok and ByteDance “are violating or are in the process of violating the law”. The FTC is conducting a follow-up investigation to ensure that the platform respects the conditions of the peace agreement reached in 2019, when it sued the father of TikTok, Orin.lyfor indiscriminately collecting the personal data of minor users.

TikTok has agreed to pay $5.7 million in compensation and agrees to comply with the provisions of the law known as COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act), adopted in 1998. In a message on ), TikTok said it was “sad that the agency has chosen to litigate rather than continue to work with us to reach a reasonable solution”.

“We strongly disagree with the FTC’s allegations, many of which relate to past events and practices that are detailed or have already been addressed,” the company continued, which said it had ” strict protections” and suspend the accounts of users under 13 years old. TikTok did not immediately respond to an inquiry from AFP.

Data collected for China?

The United States Congress passed a bill in April to force ByteDance to sell its Star app within the next nine months, at the risk of being banned in the United States. The government and many elected officials accuse it of collecting data on Americans for Beijing, and believe it represents a threat to national security.

“The FTC will continue to use the full extent of its powers to protect children online, even as companies deploy increasingly sophisticated digital tools to track children and profit from their data,” Lina said Friday Khan, Chairman of the FTC.