TikTok to pay $400 million to U.S. in children's privacy settlement

TikTok has agreed to pay $400 million to the United States to resolve a 2024 lawsuit alleging the platform violated children’s privacy, marking one of the largest settlements tied to that issue to date.

The lawsuit, filed in 2024 by the Department of Justice during President Joe Biden's administration, accuses TikTok and its parent company ByteDance of collecting "huge amounts of data" on millions of users under the age of 13 in breach of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the federal law enacted in 2000.

Settlement follows earlier COPPA penalties

Under the terms of the agreement, TikTok will pay $400 million to end the case. The figure places the deal among the largest penalties associated with alleged COPPA violations; previous notable actions include YouTube (Google) paying $170 million in 2019 and Epic Games paying $275 million in 2022.

Officials said the settlement will strengthen safeguards for young users. "Children and parents are better protected today than they were when this case began," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Brett Shumate.

The case is part of a broader wave of legal scrutiny of major tech companies over child-directed data collection and targeted advertising. Meta now faces separate claims from 29 U.S. states that could lead to fines running into the hundreds of billions of dollars, and a jury trial involving the owner of Instagram and Facebook began this week, with accusations that the company targeted child users and profited from them.

Regulators and privacy advocates say the TikTok settlement underscores growing enforcement of COPPA and related protections for minors online, and signals heightened legal risk for platforms found to improperly collect or monetise data from children.

Photo: press material from the event