TikTok has agreed to pay $400 million to settle a lawsuit with the US Department of Justice over alleged violations of federal children’s privacy laws, the department announced on Friday.
The video-sharing platform and its partial owner ByteDance will pay one of the largest penalties ever obtained under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), according to the Justice Department.
Under the settlement, TikTok will pay $300 million immediately and an additional $100 million upon entry of an order vacating a prior consent decree entered against TikTok’s predecessor, Musical.ly.
Collecting data without permission
The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission jointly sued TikTok in 2024, alleging that the platform placed millions of children at risk by collecting their personal data without parental permission.
COPPA bars websites from gathering the personal information of children younger than 13 without parental consent.
The suit claimed that TikTok allowed children to use the app and collected personal data from young users without notifying their parents. Even accounts created in a “Kids Mode” intended for users younger than 13 gathered email addresses and other personal information, according to the lawsuit.
ByteDance, which sold off a majority stake of its US entity earlier this year to avoid a ban by the Trump administration, retains a 19.9% ownership stake in TikTok US, according to US media.
Musical.ly merger
In 2019, the US filed a COPPA lawsuit against an app called Musical.ly, which ByteDance bought in 2017 and then merged into TikTok.
According to an ABC News report in May, the Trump administration was considering using the funds for ongoing beautification projects, which have included resurfacing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, renovating the White House ballroom and building an arch. It was not immediately clear what the settlement funds will be used for.
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Global enforcement grows
The US settlement comes amid growing global enforcement against the video app over child safety concerns.
Brussels began a probe into TikTok in 2024 under the Digital Services Act (DSA), a content law the EU has deployed to rein in Big Tech in recent years.
In July, the European Union accused TikTok of failing to protect children through account settings that can expose them to risks like cyberbullying and predatory behaviour, putting the company at risk of a large fine.
The EU said minors’ accounts should only be visible to those they have given permission to. Children ages 13 and over can use TikTok.
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“A high level of protection should not be an opt-in; it should be the default,” EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said in a statement at that time.
Under the DSA, children’s account settings must have, by default, the strongest safety and security protections.
Britain’s communications regulator Ofcom also launched an investigation into TikTok in July, examining whether the platform is doing enough under UK law to protect children from harmful content. The probe will look at TikTok’s age-verification model.
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