WASHINGTON - Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing TikTok for allegedly exploiting the privacy of children, accusing the popular video sharing site of using the data of minors without parental permission.
"I will continue to hold TikTok and other Big Tech companies accountable for exploiting Texas children and failing to prioritise minors’ online safety and privacy.
"Texas law requires social media companies to take steps to protect kids online and requires them to provide parents with tools to do the same. TikTok and other social media companies cannot ignore their duties under Texas law," Paxton said in a statement, reported Sputnik.
Minors are protected from the harms associated with social media under Texas’ SCOPE - or Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment - Act. This law states that digital service providers, such as TikTok, are prohibited from sharing, disclosing, or selling a minor’s personal identifying information without permission from the child’s parent or legal guardian.
The SCOPE Act also requires companies to provide parents with tools to manage and control the privacy and account settings on their child’s account.
"TikTok has failed to comply with these requirements,” said the attorney general, who is seeking civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation and injunctive relief as well to prevent future violations of the law by TikTok.
TikTok did not immediately respond to Paxton’s lawsuit or remarks.
The Texas suit is the latest action against TikTok by US authorities after a surfeit of legal moves against the Chinese-owned social media that began during the Trump administration and continued under President Joe Biden.
Biden has signed a bill to ban TikTok if ByteDance, its Chinese owner, doesn't divest within a year. Under that bill, ByteDance has nine months to sell, with a potential three-month extension if it can demonstrate progress. The Chinese company is challenging that order with a lawsuit of its own. - BERNAMA-SPUTNIK