TikTok to pay $92 million to settle privacy lawsuits

TikTok Inc. agreed to pay $92 million to settle privacy lawsuits claiming the app illegally recorded facialscan images of users and disclosed private data to third parties.U.S. District Judge John Z. Lee in Chicago must approve the deal announced Thursday and told lawyers in September that it will be rejected if it doesn’t represent everyone’s interests.

The Trump administration contended TikTok is a national security threat because of its ownership by Beijingbased ByteDance Ltd. gives the Chinese government access to the personal data of millions of Americans.About 20 U.S. lawsuits against TikTok, including complaints filed in federal courts in California and Illinois, have been consolidated before the Chicago judge.

In addition to creating a monetary fund for TikTok users, the settlement requires that TikTok initiate a new privacy compliance training program and take other steps to protect its users’ privacy going forward.

“Social media seems so innocuous, but troubling data collection, storage, and disclosure can happen behind the scenes,” Katrina Carroll, a lawyer representing the users, said in a statement. “This settlement sets out to prevent that.”

The accord proposed Thursday compares to $650 million Facebook Inc. agreed to pay to resolve claims it illegally gathered biometric data through its photo-tagging tool.The case is TikTok Consumer Privacy Litigation, 20cv-04699, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois (Chicago).