TikTok to pay $400m to US in one of largest child privacy settlements - BBC

TikTok has agreed to pay $400m (£293m) to the US government to settle a lawsuit alleging its platform violated children's privacy, one of the largest such settlements to date.
The case originated with a 2024 Department of Justice suit under former President Joe Biden, which accused TikTok and parent company ByteDance of collecting vast amounts of data on millions of users under age 13, in breach of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) enacted in 2000.
Under the deal, TikTok and ByteDance will pay $300m immediately, with a further $100m due once the government vacates a 2019 consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission; assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said children and parents are now better protected than when the case began.
The settlement follows other COPPA penalties, including Google's YouTube paying $170m in 2019 and Epic Games paying $275m in 2022, while Meta is facing a jury trial over COPPA claims from attorneys general in 29 states.
At the time of filing, US attorneys said more than 170 million teenagers used TikTok and described the app as "directed to children," yet it failed to properly verify user ages or obtain parental consent; the DOJ noted TikTok has since made significant changes to ownership, privacy practices and youth controls.
The lawsuit predates the 2024 split of TikTok's US business from its China base, and the settlement covers only TikTok's China operations; the app's US operations are now 81% owned by an investor consortium, with ByteDance retaining a 19% stake.