Lawsuit against TikTok in the US Department of Justice

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on Tuesday that it had filed a report with the Department of Justice regarding TikTok for its possible violation of the Minors Online Protection Act.

The FTC explained that it had begun a follow-up investigation to ensure that the platform respects the terms of the consensual agreement reached in 2019, according to a statement published by this commission concerned with protecting American consumers on its website.

At the time, the agency criticized TikTok through the Musical.ly website for collecting personal data of young users without justification.

TikTok agreed to pay $5.7 million in damages and pledged to comply with the so-called COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act), which was passed in 1998.

The FTC said the agency’s investigations “gave it reason to believe” that TikTok and its parent company, Chinese company ByteDance, “have violated or are in the process of violating the law.”

The FTC said it generally does not publicly address any DOJ report, but that it deemed it “in the public interest” to do so in this case.

In a letter posted on its X platform, TikTok said it was “disappointed that the agency chose to litigate rather than continue to work with us to reach a reasonable resolution.”