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New York TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, reached a $400 million settlement with the US Justice Department over children\u2019s privacy litigation on Friday, one of the largest amounts yet for a case of this kind.<\/p>\n The Justice Department first sued TikTok in 2024, claiming the app failed to stop children from joining the app and unlawfully collected their personal data. That violated the Children\u2019s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the Justice Department said.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the latest settlement<\/a> in an onslaught of lawsuits and scrutiny against major tech companies and social media platforms, alleging harm to children.<\/p>\n Friday\u2019s settlement is \u201cone of the largest recoveries ever obtained in a COPPA case,\u201d a press release from the Justice Department said<\/a>.<\/p>\n As part of the settlement, TikTok will immediately pay $300 million, and then another $100 million related to a 2019 Federal Trade Commission order<\/a> involving Musical.ly<\/a>, a video-sharing app Bytedance bought in 2017<\/a> and merged with TikTok.<\/p>\n The lawsuit in 2024<\/a> stemmed from that 2019 agreement. The Justice Department alleged that TikTok continued to collect data on children, such as email addresses, phone numbers and location data, and failed to comply with requests from parents to delete their children\u2019s information, all in violation of the agreement, which required that the company take specific measures to abide by COPPA.<\/p>\n In 2024, TikTok said many of the allegations \u201crelate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n Since the lawsuit, TikTok has implemented a number of changes, including<\/a> \u201cextensive measures designed to strengthen safeguards for younger users, improve age-related controls, and enhance parental oversight,\u201d the Justice Department said in the press release.<\/p>\n