British News Agency

The government said TikTok violated a law prohibiting the collection, use or disclosure of personal information of children under 13 without parental consent.

The lawsuit, filed on Friday, follows similar cases in the UK and EU that resulted in regulators fining TikTok millions of dollars for allegedly failing to keep children safe on the platform and mishandling their data.

It is also part of a broader standoff between the US government and ByteDance. Earlier this year, Congress passed a bill giving the China-based company a year to sell TikTok or face a complete ban of the app.

On Tuesday, the US Senate passed a bill that would expand the Children and Youth Online Privacy Protection Act, known as Coppa, to cover young people up to the age of 17, ban targeted advertising to children and teens, and give parents and children the option to delete their information from social media platforms.

To become law, the bill must pass the Republican-controlled House, which is currently in recess until September.

In June, TikTok said that it had been working with the FTC for more than a year to address the agency's concerns and was "disappointed that the agency is pursuing litigation rather than continuing to work with us on a reasonable solution."