Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On February 27, 2019, the Federal Trade Commission announced a record $5.7 million civil penalty against popular video creation and sharing app Musical.ly (now known as TikTok) for violations of U.S. children’s privacy rules. According to the FTC’s complaint, Musical.ly is designed to appeal to young children (among others), and the company was aware that a significant percentage of Musical.ly users were children under the age of 13. The FTC also alleged that Musical.ly gained actual knowledge of underage use from parents who unsuccessfully sought to have their children’s information deleted. Under the FTC’s settlement, in addition to paying the penalty, Musical.ly must destroy or obtain parental consent for all previously improperly collected children’s information.