TikTok and its parent company ByteDance have agreed to pay $400 million to settle allegations by the U.S. Department of Justice that the social media platform violated federal children’s privacy laws by allowing millions of users under 13 to use the service and collecting their personal information without the required parental consent.
The settlement resolves a lawsuit filed by the DOJ in 2024 under the Biden administration. It also requires TikTok to introduce additional safeguards for young users, including stronger age-related controls, enhanced protections for children and measures giving parents greater oversight of their children’s activity and personal information.
TikTok and ByteDance will not be required to admit wrongdoing under the agreement. Axios first reported the settlement.
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The case centers on the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, which places restrictions on how online services collect personal information from children under 13 and generally requires verifiable parental consent before such information can be collected.
The DOJ alleged that TikTok allowed large numbers of children to remain on its platform for extended periods even after the company had previously faced federal enforcement action over the same issue.
In 2019, TikTok agreed to pay $5.7 million to settle allegations involving its predecessor Musical.ly, which regulators said had violated COPPA. As part of that settlement, the company committed to measures designed to prevent children under 13 from creating accounts.
The subsequent DOJ lawsuit alleged that TikTok failed to adequately enforce those safeguards.
According to the allegations, millions of children continued to use the platform, while TikTok retained and used personal information associated with some underage users. That information could include data relevant to targeted advertising.
The government also alleged that TikTok employees raised concerns internally about the number of young users on the platform but that the company continued to struggle to identify and remove them. The lawsuit further alleged that TikTok modified parts of its registration process in ways that made it more difficult to determine whether users were old enough to join the service.
The settlement therefore goes beyond the financial penalty by requiring changes to TikTok’s systems for identifying and protecting children. The measures are intended to strengthen age assurance and give parents greater control over information connected to younger users.
The agreement comes as TikTok faces broader scrutiny over how its algorithms affect user safety. Just days before the settlement, Bloomberg reported that TikTok had intentionally disabled an algorithmic safeguard for roughly 10% of its U.S. users as part of an experiment. The safeguard was designed to reduce the likelihood that users would be exposed to excessive amounts of harmful or potentially damaging content.
The report prompted questions from lawmakers about how TikTok conducts safety experiments on its U.S. platform. Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut sent a letter to TikTok CEO Shou Chew and Adam Presser, chief executive of the company’s U.S. business, seeking answers about the decision to disable the safeguard.
The combination of the settlement and the latest scrutiny puts additional attention on TikTok’s approach to platform governance, particularly its use of automated systems to determine what users see and how the company identifies vulnerable groups.
However, the $400 million settlement represents a significant financial penalty, but the more consequential element may be the requirement to strengthen the systems used to identify underage users and protect their information.
The case joins the increasing legal risks facing social media companies as U.S. regulators move beyond traditional data-privacy enforcement and examine how platforms design their registration systems, moderate content, and use algorithms to manage user experiences.
The settlement does not end the wider debate over TikTok’s responsibilities toward younger users. With lawmakers and regulators examining both children’s privacy and algorithmic safety, the company faces continuing pressure to demonstrate that its safeguards work in practice rather than simply exist as formal policies.