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Indiana’s attorney general, Todd Rokita, announced that Indiana is suing TikTok for allegedly misleading users about China’s access to their data and for exposing children to mature content, thus violating child safety laws.
The attorney general is suing TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, for supposedly breaking state consumer laws by failing to disclose the Chinese government’s access to their user data. Secondly, the ByteDance-owned firm also deceived children and their parents with its age rating of 12-plus in Apple’s and Google’s app stores, even though inappropriate sexual and substance-related content is readily available.
“TikTok is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” the attorney general’s office said.
The state of Indiana seeks penalties of up to $5,000 per violation and appealed to a state Superior Court to order TikTok to stop misleading claims about data handling and stop marketing the app as appropriate for young teenagers.
TikTok has denied all allegations that it sends American user data to the Chinese government. TikTok claims there are age gates for some videos, to limit teens’ access to more mature content, and there are ‘robust’ processes and controls for ByteDance workers who might access data outside the US.
Mounting legal troubles for TikTok
Following the lawsuit filed by Indiana’s attorney general, Texas governor Greg Abbott has ordered all state agencies to ban TikTok on government-issued devices, claiming that the Chinese app poses a “serious threat”.
“TikTok harvests vast amounts of data from its users’ devices – including when, where, and how they conduct internet activity – and offers this trove of potentially sensitive information to the Chinese government,” he said.
In September, British regulators warned TikTok that it could face up to $29 million in fines for violating child safety laws. The European Union also has an ongoing investigation into TikTok for allegedly sending the data of E.U. citizens to the Chinese government and targeting ads to minors.