TikTok agrees to settle US lawsuit for $92 million

TikTok agrees to settle US lawsuit for $92 million

Illinois privacy law makes consumer data harvesting without consent a crime for which digital companies have to cough up money to avoid a lengthy litigation process

ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of video-sharing app TikTok has agreed to pay $92 million to settle a lawsuit in Illinois for alleged violation of the strict privacy law.

Illinois is the only state in the US to have a strict privacy law that allows lawsuits against companies harvesting consumer data without their consent. People are allowed to seek monetary compensation for unauthorized data collection including those through facial or fingerprint scanning to unlock a mobile phone handset.

Facebook had learnt its lessons the harder way in February 2020 when it had to give $550 million in settlement of a similar lawsuit.

"While we disagree with the assertions, rather than go through lengthy litigation, we would like to focus our efforts on building a safe and joyful experience for the TikTok community," TikTok said in a statement.

The federal lawsuit has alleged that TikTok violated the Illinois Biometric Privacy Law and used the data collected illegally for commercial use.

The Illinois Biometric Privacy Law has survived attempts of the tech industry to weaken the strict law as collecting consumer data for business purposes is a big revenue module for tech giants like Google and Facebook.

The TikTok settlement must still be approved by a federal judge before the lawsuit is dropped.