TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance
has agreed to pay $92 million in a settlement to
U.S. users who are part of a class-action lawsuit
alleging that the video-sharing app failed to
get their consent to collect data in violation of a
strict Illinois privacy law.
The federal lawsuit alleged that TikTok broke
the Illinois biometric privacy law, which allows
suits against companies that harvest consumer
data without consent, including via facial and
fingerprint scanning. Illinois is the only state
with a law that allows people to seek monetary
damages for such unauthorized data collection.