TikTok Agrees to Settle Dozens of Class Action Lawsuits Over Alleged Privacy Violations

On February 25, 2021, a popular video-sharing app TikTok has agreed to pay $92 million to settle a number of federal lawsuits which alleged that it obtained personal data from users, including information using facial recognition technology, without consent and shared the data with third-parties, some of which were based in China.

The settlement will resolve 21 lawsuits, filed mostly on behalf of minors, which alleged violations of the Illinois Biometrics Information Privacy Act, various California statutes, as well as federal privacy and computer fraud and abuse statutes.  The settlement will apply to 89 million TikTok users in the United States and will be among the largest privacy-related payouts in history.

Under the settlement terms, TikTok will no longer record users’ biometric information, including facial characteristics, and will not track users’ location using GPS data. TikTok has also agreed to stop sending U.S. users’ data overseas and would no longer collect data on draft videos before the content is published.

This is not the first time that the company has found itself in hot legal waters.  Last year, the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Justice Department were looking into allegations that TikTok violated a 2019 consent decree with the FTC over its violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.

TikTok is also facing various regulatory complaints in Europe.  The European Data Protection Board has already established a task force to coordinate potential actions and to acquire a more comprehensive overview of TikTok’s processing and practices across the European Union.

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