US accuses TikTok of violating children’s privacy

The United States, in a lawsuit filed on Friday, has accused TikTok of violating children’s privacy by collecting data about them without parental permission when they use the app.

The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have joined forces in a civil suit, claiming that the popular video-sharing app breached the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

“TikTok knowingly and repeatedly violated kids’ privacy, threatening the safety of millions of children across the country,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement.

COPPA prohibits websites from gathering personal information about children under 13 years of age without obtaining parental consent.

The suit argues that since 2019, TikTok has allowed children to use the app, collecting and using personal data from young users without informing their parents.

Even accounts created in a “Kids Mode” intended for users under 13 gathered email addresses and other personal information, the suit contends.

TikTok and its parent company ByteDance often “failed to honour” requests by parents to have their children’s accounts and data removed and had ineffective policies for identifying and deleting accounts created by children, justice department officials said in the statement.

“This action is necessary to prevent the defendants, who are repeat offenders operating on a massive scale, from collecting and using young children’s private information without any parental consent or control,” Justice

Department Deputy Assistant Attorney Brian Boynton said in the statement.

Five years ago, the US filed a COPPA-focused suit against an app called Musical.ly, which the China-based ByteDance had acquired and merged into TikTok.

That case resulted in TikTok having to take steps to comply with the Children’s Privacy Act, according to justice department officials.

Threat?

TikTok’s collection of user data makes it a national security threat, the US Justice Department said a week ago in response to ByteDance’s legal bid to block the forced sale of the app.

TikTok’s lawsuit in a Washington federal court argues that a law requiring the app to be sold next year or face a US ban violates First Amendment rights to free speech.

The US response counters that the law addresses national security concerns, not free speech, and that TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, cannot claim First Amendment rights in the United States.

“Given TikTok’s broad reach within the United States, the capacity for China to use TikTok’s features to achieve its overarching objective to undermine American interests creates a national security threat of immense depth and scale,” the Justice Department wrote in its filing.

The legal response to TikTok’s lawsuit in an appeals court details concerns that ByteDance could, and would, comply with Chinese government demands for data about US users or yield to pressure to censor or promote content on the platform, senior justice department officials said in a briefing.

TikTok countered in a filing, stating, “The Constitution is on our side.”

“The TikTok ban would silence 170 million Americans’ voices, violating the First Amendment,” the company said in a statement on the social media platform X, referring to the app’s users in the United States.

“As we’ve said before, the government has never presented proof of its claims, including when Congress passed this unconstitutional law.”

A bill signed by President Joe Biden earlier this year set a mid-January 2025 deadline for TikTok to find a non-Chinese buyer or face a US ban.

ByteDance has said it has no plans to sell TikTok, leaving the lawsuit, which will likely go to the US Supreme Court, as its only option to avoid a ban.

“There is no question: the Act will force a shutdown of TikTok by January 19, 2025,” the lawsuit said, “silencing those who use the platform to communicate in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere.”

AFP.