TikTok and its parent company ByteDance have agreed to pay $400 million to resolve a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit alleging the platform violated federal children’s privacy laws. The settlement, first reported by Axios, closes a case filed in 2024 that accused the company of allowing millions of children under 13 to use the app while collecting their personal data without parental consent.
The agreement includes new compliance measures beyond the financial penalty. TikTok will implement stronger age-verification controls, additional safeguards for young users, and enhanced parental oversight tools. The company does not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement.
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A long-running COPPA dispute reaches a resolution
The DOJ’s 2024 lawsuit was not TikTok’s first encounter with children’s privacy enforcement. In 2019, the company paid $5.7 million to settle allegations that its predecessor app Musical.ly violated COPPA. That agreement included a commitment to prevent children under 13 from creating accounts.
According to the government’s allegations, TikTok continued to struggle with underage users after the 2019 settlement. The lawsuit claimed the company maintained and used data belonging to children, including information for targeted advertising, even after employees raised internal concerns. It also alleged that TikTok modified its registration policies in ways that made it harder to determine a user’s age.
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The Federal Trade Commission, which enforces COPPA alongside the DOJ, has taken an increasingly aggressive stance on children’s privacy in recent years. The agency has pursued similar actions against other platforms, including a record $170 million penalty against YouTube in 2019 for COPPA violations.
Scrutiny over safety features intensifies
The settlement arrives as TikTok faces fresh criticism over its approach to user safety. Days before the agreement was announced, Bloomberg reported that TikTok had intentionally disabled an algorithmic safeguard for roughly 10% of U.S. users as part of an experiment. The safeguard was designed to reduce the likelihood of users being exposed to harmful or damaging content.
The report drew bipartisan criticism from lawmakers. Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut sent a letter to TikTok CEO Shou Chew and Adam Presser, head of the company’s U.S. operations, demanding answers about the decision.
The incident adds to a pattern of regulatory and legislative pressure on TikTok in the United States. The company has faced scrutiny over data security, foreign ownership concerns, and content moderation policies. While the $400 million settlement resolves the specific COPPA claims, it does not address broader questions about the platform’s operations that remain under review in Washington.
For parents, the settlement’s practical impact will depend on how quickly TikTok implements the promised age controls and oversight features. The company has not yet published a timeline for rolling out the new safeguards, and details of the compliance measures are expected to be outlined in the final court filing.
This settlement is not financial advice. The regulatory field for social media companies remains volatile, and enforcement actions can change rapidly as new cases and legislation emerge.
