TikTok to Pay $400M in Child Privacy Settlement with U.S. DOJ
The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Friday that ByteDance-owned TikTok has agreed to pay $400 million to settle a 2024 lawsuit accusing the social media platform of violating federal child privacy laws. The settlement includes an immediate payment of $300 million, with an additional $100 million contingent on the vacating of a prior consent decree entered against TikTok's predecessor, Musical.ly. The DoJ characterized the resolution as one of the largest recoveries ever obtained under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
The original complaint, filed in August 2024 alongside the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), alleged that TikTok engaged in "massive-scale invasions of children's privacy." According to the filing, the company knowingly allowed children under 13 to create accounts and unlawfully collected data from minors who used its "Kids Mode." The complaint further alleged that TikTok and ByteDance failed to comply with parental requests to delete their children's accounts and associated personal information. TikTok contested these claims at the time, arguing that many related to "past events and practices" that were "factually inaccurate or have been addressed."
"This settlement is a major victory for American children and parents," said Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. The DoJ also noted that TikTok has since implemented extensive measures to improve safeguards for younger users, including strengthened age-related controls and enhanced parental oversight features. However, this is not the company's first regulatory encounter over child data privacy—TikTok was previously fined €345 million by European regulators in September 2023 for GDPR violations related to the processing of children's personal data. Earlier this year, a U.S. joint venture arrangement allowed the app to continue operating domestically without a ban under the divest-or-ban law upheld by the Supreme Court.
The case underscores growing global scrutiny over how social media platforms collect, store, and process minors' data. For parents and users concerned about how their personal information is being handled, tools like our email breach checker and privacy checkup can help assess exposure across services. Additionally, running a browser fingerprint test can reveal what tracking data your device may be sharing with websites and apps without your explicit consent.