By Farnoush Amiri
Popular social media app TikTok has agreed to pay $5.7 million as part of a settlement over allegations it “illegally accrued snapshots, voice recordings, and geolocation” of youngsters, a few younger than 13.

The amount, part of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission introduced Wednesday, is the most significant civil penalty ever issued via the organization in a baby privateness case.

FTC commissioners Rohit Chopra and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter also filed a separate declaration calling for TikTok executives to be held accountable in future cases.

“In our view, those practices meditated the employer’s willingness to pursue boom even on the cost of endangering kids,” the declaration study.

The social media platform Musical.Ly, obtained through Chinese company ByteDance in 2017, has a considerable following among preteens and teenagers. It lets younger users submit motion pictures of themselves and speak to other customers through the app.

The FTC criticism, filed by the Department of Justice, accused the company of violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which calls for social media systems and websites to gain parental consent before accumulating any facts or statistics from users younger than thirteen.