The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a civil lawsuit on Friday against TikTok for “widespread violations” of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). 

This complaint, which covers allegations dating back to 2019, details how TikTok let kids under the age of 13 create regular TikTok accounts to make, watch and share short-form videos and messages with other users (including adults). TikTok also collected and kept a variety of personal info about these minors without notifying parents or getting their consent. The US government is seeking civil penalties and an injunction against the platform. 

“TikTok knowingly and repeatedly violated kids’ privacy, threatening the safety of millions of children across the country,” said FTC chair Lina Khan in the statement. “The FTC will continue to use the full scope of its authorities to protect children online—especially as firms deploy increasingly sophisticated digital tools to surveil kids and profit from their data.”

According to the lawsuit, TikTok is alleged to have collected kids’ data and connected them with adult users and content—even while a court order was in place barring the company from violating COPPA and imposing rules to ensure compliance. 

These COPPA breaches also extend to TikTok’s Kids Mode, which has limited features and is supposed to be safe for users under age 13. When parents discovered that the company was unlawfully collecting and keeping their children’s email addresses and other personal info and asked it to delete these accounts and records, the company often didn’t comply with their requests. 

TikTok remains firm that it has done nothing wrong: “We disagree with these allegations, many of which relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed. We are proud of our efforts to protect children, and we will continue to update and improve the platform. To that end, we offer age-appropriate experiences with stringent safeguards, proactively remove suspected underage users, and have voluntarily launched features such as default screentime limits, Family Pairing and additional privacy protections for minors.”

This isn’t the first time the FTC has squared off against TikTok on COPPA violations. In 2019, the platform agreed to pay a US$5.7-million fine for previous violations.