Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has initiated a lawsuit against TikTok, alleging that the company breached a newly established state child privacy law. This case marks the first trial of Texas’ Securing Children Online Through Parental Empowerment (SCOPE) Act, which came into effect slightly more than a month ago.
According to the law, portions of which were struck down by a federal judge, social media companies are mandated to ascertain the ages of younger users and provide parental control options, which include allowing parents to exclude their children from data collection.
The lawsuit alleges that TikTok’s existing parental control mechanisms are inadequate. “However, Defendants do not provide the parents or guardians of users known to be 13 to 17 years old with parental tools that allow them to control or limit most of a known minor’s privacy and account settings,” the lawsuit states. “For example, parents or guardians do not have the ability to control Defendants’ sharing, disclosing, and selling of a known minor’s personal identifying information, nor control Defendants’ ability to display targeted advertising to a known minor.”
The complaint further claims that the platform’s “Family Pairing” feature is not “commercially reasonable,” as it requires parents to create their own TikTok accounts, and teens can refuse parental requests to establish the monitoring tool. TikTok did not immediately comment on the issue. The platform already prohibits most targeted advertising to users under 18.
“We strongly disagree with these allegations and, in fact, we offer robust safeguards for teens and parents, including family pairing, all of which are publicly available,” the company stated in a message shared on X. “We stand by the protections we provide families.”
This lawsuit adds to the mounting legal challenges TikTok faces in the United States. The company is actively contesting a law that might lead to an outright ban of the app across the country. Additionally, it is confronting a separate Justice Department lawsuit concerning child privacy.
Update, October 3, 2024, 8:05 PM ET: This story has been updated to include a statement from TikTok.
