TikTok has settled US concerns over children’s privacy for $400 million

TikTok on Friday reached a $400 million settlement in a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department that accused the company of illegally collecting information about children.

A 2024 lawsuit filed under the Biden administration alleged that TikTok collected data from users under the age of 13 without parental consent. The lawsuit accused TikTok of knowingly allowing children to create accounts and disregarding parents’ requests to delete their children’s accounts.

According to the government, TikTok violated the federal Privacy Act along with a 2019 agreement with the government in which the app promised to take steps to protect children’s privacy.

According to the deal announced on Friday, TikTok will pay $300 million. The Justice Department also asked the court to void the 2019 agreement, after which TikTok would pay an additional $100 million to the government, according to a Justice Department press release.

The settlement is the latest move by the Trump administration as it takes a softer approach to the government’s ongoing lawsuits against several major companies.

In March, the Justice Department settled a lawsuit that accused Live Nation, the owner of Ticketmaster, of illegally maintaining a monopoly. The government also reached a settlement last year that allowed technology company Hewlett Packard Enterprise to buy rival Juniper Networks over the objection of some prosecutors.

The settlement between TikTok and the government also marks the latest victory for the popular short video app in the second Trump administration.

During President Trump’s first term, he signed an executive order forcing its Chinese owner ByteDance to sell. . But TikTok successfully sued to block the ban. In 2024, former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. signed a law that will ban the app unless it is sold to a non-Chinese owner.

After Mr. Trump returned to office, he repeatedly delayed enforcement of the law. In January, ByteDance announced that it had reached an agreement with the United States government to spin off its US operations to a group of non-Chinese investors.

In a statement, Stanley E. Woodward Jr., the associate attorney general, called the settlement “a major victory for America’s children and parents.” A spokeswoman for the US version of TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.