The Justice Department sued TikTok on Friday, accusing the company of violating children’s online privacy law and running afoul of a settlement it had reached with another federal agency.
In the complaint, the Justice Department and the FTC allege TikTok has knowingly allowed children to create accounts and retained their personal information without notifying their parents. This practice extends to accounts created in “Kids Mode,” a version of TikTok for children under 13, Justice said in a press release explaining the lawsuit.The two agencies allege the information collected included activities on the app and other identifiers used to build user profiles.
In March, a person with the matter had told the AP the FTC’s investigation was also looking into whether TikTok violated a portion of federal law that prohibits “unfair and deceptive” business practices by denying that individuals in China had access to U.S. user data.