TikTok has agreed to pay $400 million to settle a U.S. lawsuit accusing the ByteDance-owned platform of violating child privacy laws, including knowingly allowing children under 13 to create accounts and unlawfully collecting their data. The Department of Justice described the settlement as one of the largest ever obtained under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). This follows a €345 million GDPR fine levied against TikTok in Europe in 2023 over similar concerns about children's data.
