By Jody Godoy
(Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department plans to focus an upcoming lawsuit against TikTok on allegations that the popular social media platform violated children’s privacy rights, rather than alleging that it misled adult users about its data privacy practices, according to reports a source familiar with the matter.
The US Federal Trade Commission investigated possible violations by TikTok and parent company ByteDance and referred the matter to the Justice Department on Tuesday.
“The investigation revealed reason to believe that the named suspects are violating or are about to violate the law and that proceeding is in the public interest,” the FTC said in a statement at the time.
Reuters first reported in 2020 that the FTC and the U.S. Department of Justice were investigating allegations that the popular social media app failed to comply with a 2019 agreement aimed at protecting children’s privacy.
TikTok has said it strongly disagrees with the FTC’s allegations and is disappointed that the agency has decided to file a lawsuit.
The investigation is separate from ongoing concerns in Congress about the possibility that the Chinese government could unlawfully access the data of TikTok’s 170 million U.S. users.
TikTok denies the accusation.
TikTok is challenging a law passed in April that requires Chinese parent company ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. assets by Jan. 19 or face a ban.
ByteDance said in the case on Thursday that a ban would be inevitable without court intervention, and that a divestiture “is not technologically, commercially or legally possible.”
(This story has been refiled to correct a typo in the headline)
