TikTok has agreed to pay $400m to the US government to settle allegations that it collected personal information from children without their parents' consent, in one of the largest child privacy settlements reached in the country.
The deal stems from a 2024 lawsuit alleging TikTok knowingly allowed children under 13 to create accounts on its app and gathered their data in breach of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, the federal law that requires parental consent before a company collects information from young users.
The complaint, filed by the Justice Department on behalf of the Federal Trade Commission, also accused the company of failing to delete children's accounts and data when parents asked it to.
It was not the first case of its kind against the platform. In 2019 the company paid $5.7m to settle similar allegations against Musical.ly, the lip-syncing app it had acquired and merged into TikTok, and agreed to an order meant to stop the practices recurring. The 2024 lawsuit alleged that order had been broken.
TikTok disputed the allegations when the lawsuit was filed, saying many of them related to past practices that had since been addressed.
The settlement is expected to require a federal judge's approval before it takes effect.
