TikTok Child Privacy Lawsuit

Our TikTok Child Privacy lawsuit claims that TikTok is violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”) by “unlawfully and unfairly gathering kids’ data for years, despite being ordered by a federal court to stop.” 

 

On April 21, 2025, Gibbs Mura filed a child privacy class action lawsuit against TikTok and TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, for disregarding the privacy of its child users in pursuit of its own profit. This TikTok Child Privacy lawsuit alleges that TikTok has been collecting personal information from minors without: 

 

• requiring parental consent, or  

• properly notifying parents about how this information was used or collected. 

COPPA was enacted by Congress to protect young children’s information online. Under COPPA, website operators like TikTok must: 

 

• Provide direct notice to parents and obtain consent before collecting personal information online from children; 

• Provide parents access to their child’s personal information to review and/or have the information deleted; 

• Give parents the opportunity to prevent further use or online collection of their child’s personal information; 

• Maintain the confidentiality, security, and integrity of information they collect from children; 

• Retain personal information collected online from a child for only as long as is necessary; 

• And more. 

 

Our lawyers argue that children have a limited capacity to understand how TikTok collects and uses their personal information. As a result, TikTok should have taken extra care to ensure young users understand how their personal data is used.  

The Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Federal Trade Commission sued TikTok in August 2024 for failing to comply with COPPA’s requirement to notify and obtain parental consent prior to collecting and using personal information from children under the age of 13.  

 

“TikTok knowingly and repeatedly violated kids’ privacy, threatening the safety of millions of children across the country” – FTC Chair Lina M. Khan  

 

Additionally, according to the DOJ complaint, TikTok made it difficult for parents to delete  their children’s TikTok accounts and personal information on TikTok. 

We currently represent hundreds of families who are suing TikTok to hold it accountable for purposefully designing addictive algorithms and features that may cause child and teen depression, anxiety, self-harm, and eating disorders.  

 

We’re also talking to  families who are interested in holding TikTok accountable for violating the privacy of minors. Talk to one of our award-winning lawyers and see if you qualify to serve as a class representative in the class action lawsuit.