China US government accuses Tiktok of collecting children's data

The US government is stepping up the legal pressure on Tiktok and its Chinese parent company Bytedance with a lawsuit over the collection of children's data. Tiktok is already fighting a law in the USA that is intended to force a change of ownership.

The video app and its Chinese parent company Bytedance have made it too easy for children under the age of 13 to open accounts without their parents' consent, according to the US Department of Justice's statement of claim.

In addition, Tiktok had in some cases failed to comply with requests from parents to remove such profiles, the authorities criticized. This violates a US law for the protection of children on the Internet. Tiktok rejected the accusations. They referred in part to previous circumstances or were factually incorrect.

Tiktok had agreed to pay USD 5.7 million in 2019 to settle similar allegations made by the FTC in relation to its predecessor company Musical.ly.

Tiktok is currently defending itself against a law in the USA that would force a change of ownership. There are fears in US politics that the Chinese government could access US users' data via Bytedance and use the app for propaganda. Tiktok rejects this and went to court in the USA to stop the law.

SDA