ByteDance Agrees to $92 Million Settlement With U.S. TikTok Teens

A TikTok spokesperson said in a statement Thursday that the company hopes to move past the suit, which stemmed from 21 separate class-action complaints filed on behalf of young users last year in states including California and Illinois.

“While we disagree with the assertions, rather than go through lengthy litigation, we’d like to focus our efforts on building a safe and joyful experience for the TikTok community,” a company spokesperson said.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys, who represented users as young as 8 years old, argued TikTok surreptitiously collected biometric data to sharpen the app’s targeted advertising and content recommendations.

Such data collection without consent carries the potential of severe penalties under Illinois’ biometric privacy law, legal experts say. Facebook Inc. last year agreed to pay $650 million to settle a case under the statute.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys also alleged TikTok stores user data in China, potentially exposing it to government surveillance. The company and its lawyers previously have denied the app collects biometric data, such as face scans, or shares data with Beijing.

An attorney for TikTok said the process for approving the settlement could take months.

Write to David Uberti at [email protected]