The agreement settles allegations involving users under thirteen.
WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES
TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, have agreed to pay up to $400 million to resolve a United States government lawsuit concerning children’s personal information. The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission alleged that the platform allowed millions of children under thirteen to create accounts and collected their data without obtaining verifiable parental consent. The case was filed in 2024 under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, commonly known as COPPA. The settlement resolves the allegations without requiring TikTok or ByteDance to admit wrongdoing.
Under the agreement, the companies will pay $300 million immediately. An additional $100 million will become payable after a court vacates a previous consent decree involving Musical.ly, the application acquired by ByteDance and later incorporated into TikTok. That earlier order followed a 2019 settlement in which Musical.ly paid $5.7 million over similar allegations involving young users. Federal authorities said the new resolution provides stronger protections without extending the litigation for several more years.
The government’s complaint accused TikTok of retaining personal information from children, failing to remove certain underage accounts and making account deletion unnecessarily difficult for parents. Authorities also alleged that company employees knew children were using the service but did not consistently identify or close their accounts. COPPA requires online services directed at children, or those knowingly collecting information from them, to notify parents and secure permission before gathering personal data. The law can cover identifiers, contact details, photographs, videos and other information capable of tracking or recognizing a user.
TikTok has introduced additional age controls, parental oversight mechanisms and systems intended to detect users who provide false birth dates. The company has also assigned more employees to reviewing suspected underage accounts, although reliably determining a user’s age remains a persistent challenge across social media. The settlement illustrates that platforms cannot depend solely on users declaring their age when other evidence suggests children are accessing the service. It also intensifies pressure on technology companies to limit data collection, simplify parental requests and design protections that operate before a child’s information enters advertising or recommendation systems.
Truth is structure, not noise. / La verdad es estructura, no ruido.