On June 18, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission announced its referral of a complaint to the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) against TikTok and its parent company regarding their compliance with a 2019 privacy settlement. The complaint is related to the FTC’s investigation into potential violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”) and the FTC Act.
Specifically, the complaint centers around the FTC’s 2019 order that directed the operators of TikTok to pay $5.7 million for allegedly allowing children to use Musical.ly, TikTok’s predecessor, without parental consent in violation of COPPA. The settlement required TikTok to remedy the alleged violations by taking certain measures, such as removing all videos posted by U.S. users under 13 and creating a separate experience for younger users.
The FTC rarely publicly discloses its referral of a complaint to the DOJ, but in its public statement, the FTC stated its belief that doing so in this case was “in the public interest.”
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On March 3, 2026, the Virginia Attorney General appealed a federal court’s grant of a preliminary injunction barring the enforcement of a new Virginia law requiring age verification and a time limit on social media use by minors under the age of 16 pending a final determination on the merits.
The Federal Trade Commission has issued a new Policy Statement encouraging the adoption of robust age‑verification technologies by pledging not to bring enforcement actions under the COPPA Rule against operators of general‑ or mixed‑audience sites that collect, use or disclose personal information solely to determine users’ ages, so long as long as they follow strict safeguards.
On February 23, 2026, a Joint Statement on AI-Generated Imagery was published by 61 data protection authorities. The Joint Statement addresses concerns regarding AI systems capable of generating realistic images and videos depicting identifiable individuals without their knowledge or consent.
On February 18, 2026, Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones announced that his office intends to fully enforce new provisions of the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act restricting minors’ use of social media.
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