Last updated: 2026-10-03
On September 24, 2026, Judge George H. Wu of the Central District of California denied TikTok and ByteDance's motion to dismiss in In re TikTok, Inc., Minor Privacy Litigation, MDL No. 3144, No. 2:25-ml-03144, adopting his September 23 tentative ruling. The plaintiffs are minors suing over data TikTok allegedly collected while they were under 13. The defendants sought dismissal of all claims through August 22, 2022, arguing that two earlier class settlements released them; the court held that the pleadings do not show these plaintiffs were ever in those classes.
What is the TikTok child privacy lawsuit about?
The plaintiffs allege that "while under the age of 13, their personal information was collected, shared, and exploited without parental notice and consent," and they seek liability back to March 28, 2019. The court describes the claims as "largely predicated on alleged violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act" (COPPA), pleaded through state law. These are allegations, untested by any finding of fact.
The cases were centralized before Judge Wu on April 3, 2025; the operative complaint, filed on August 11, 2026, defines the class period as March 28, 2019 to the present. That complaint (ECF 358) has no PDF on CourtListener as of October 3, 2026; the class definition here comes from the ruling.
Which earlier TikTok settlements did the defendants rely on?
The defendants pointed to two nationwide class settlements from the Northern District of Illinois:
| T.K. v. Bytedance Technology Co. | In re TikTok, Inc., Consumer Privacy Litigation | |
|---|---|---|
| Case number (N.D. Ill.) | 1:19-cv-07915 | 1:20-cv-04699 |
| Settlement fund | $1.1 million | $92 million, plus injunctive relief |
| Class | About 6 million people (plaintiffs' counsel estimate): US residents who registered for or used Musical.ly or TikTok under 13, and their parents or guardians | Users of the app before the October 1, 2021 preliminary approval order |
| Use period released | Through August 22, 2022 | On or before October 1, 2021 |
| Subject | Children under 13, after the FTC's 2019 Musical.ly settlement | Biometric and other data collection and transfers to China; the court notes it "did not allege or focus on any violation of COPPA" |
Source: tentative ruling, ECF 414, pages 3–4 and 8–10.
Why did the judge deny TikTok's motion to dismiss?
The court found that neither the complaint nor the judicially noticed settlement records show when the named plaintiffs were born or first used TikTok. The complaint alleges only that they were under 13 and used the app during the class period. The defendants argued that no opt-out form matched any plaintiff's initials. From the ruling: "Even assuming, however, that none of the Plaintiffs opted out of the previous actions, Defendants still have not shown that they were class members in the first place. A person need not opt out of a class to which that person never belonged."
The court added that plaintiffs "need not plead around Defendants' affirmative defenses of release and preclusion" even if they know their own ages and use history, citing Jones v. Bock (page 11). The argument that a plaintiff who used TikTok only after August 22, 2022 lacks standing for the earlier period, and the request to redefine the class period, both go to class certification (page 12).
The denial is without prejudice to renewing the res judicata and release defenses "at an appropriate later stage." The membership facts remain unresolved; the court quoted the defendants' own earlier filing that "at least some minimal discovery is required" to establish them.
What happens next in the TikTok minor privacy litigation?
At a September 29, 2026 discovery hearing, Magistrate Judge Rozella A. Oliver ordered the plaintiffs to admit or deny whether they resided in the United States, were under 13 as of August 22, 2022, and registered for or used Musical.ly or TikTok before that date, and whether they used TikTok before October 1, 2021. The same minutes record that the defendants agreed to comply with a September 11, 2026 order to produce source code "for any advertisement model that serves, filters, and/or restricts advertisements for users 24 and under." Judge Oliver also ordered the defendants to substantially complete document production by the end of October; in a footnote to the parties' joint submission of September 30, 2026, the defendants say they "do not believe satisfaction of that deadline is possible."
The same submission gives December 11, 2026 as the plaintiffs' class certification deadline, and Judge Wu set a scheduling conference for October 19, 2026.
Judge Wu also handled the government's COPPA cases. In United States v. Musical.ly, No. 2:19-cv-01439-GW, the 2019 consent order imposed a $5.7 million penalty. In United States v. ByteDance, No. 2:24-cv-06535, the Justice Department announced a $400 million settlement on August 21, 2026, with $100 million of it payable "upon entry of an order vacating a prior consent decree entered against TikTok's predecessor, Musical.ly". The parties stipulated to dismiss that case with prejudice, and Judge Wu's August 24, 2026 order closed it. On September 21, 2026, he denied the government's motion to vacate the Musical.ly order without prejudice. The post on the TikTok COPPA settlement and the Musical.ly decree covers both; see also Brazil's TikTok fine.
What would a scan and capture of the TikTok app show?
The claims turn on what TikTok collected from users under 13 and what it shared. A binary scan of the Android build lists the analytics and attribution SDKs in it and whether the code sets a child-directed ad flag for Google Mobile Ads or AppLovin. That shows the code is present; only a capture shows what was sent. A capture of account creation with an under-13 birth date records each request, the receiving host, the identifier fields, and whether the request came before or after the age screen. A capture covers the current build only; the class period starts in 2019, and server-side processing is outside any capture. The amended COPPA Rule and the app store age signal laws set the current and 2027 rules for that screen.
Every static finding in a CanITrustThat scan cites its file and line, and every traffic finding cites its capture (what a scan checks, the limits of a scan). I run children's privacy investigations of apps for lawyers and researchers working with lawyers, on one app or a list in bulk. Sign up for a CanITrustThat account to run your own research, let us run an investigation for you, or browse the scanned apps.