Judge Approves $92 Million TikTok Settlement, With Illinois Claimants Receiving Biggest Share

If you and/or your minor child used the TikTok and/or Musical.ly application, You May Be Entitled to a Payment from a Class Action Settlement.

According to lawyers, TikTok users who created videos prior to Sept. 30, 2021 were eligible to be part of the class-action suit.

Two separate classes of plaintiffs were created, with one comprised of nationwide users and a second class comprised solely of Illinois-based users.

If you live in Illinois and used the TikTok app in Illinois to create videos, you may be entitled to up to 6x the Payment.

• Plaintiffs filed a class action complaint alleging that TikTok, Inc. f/k/a Musical.ly, Inc; ByteDance, Inc.; Musical.ly n/k/a TikTok, Ltd. and Beijing ByteDance Technology Co. Ltd. (collectively, the “Defendants”), violated federal and state law by collecting and using, without sufficient notice and consent, Plaintiffs’ personal data in connection with their use of the TikTok – Make Your Day video-sharing application (and/or its predecessor app Musical.ly) distributed in the U.S. (the “App.”).
• Defendants deny these allegations and other material allegations in the operative complaint.
• The Settlement¹ that has been reached in this case affects the following persons (collectively the “Settlement Class”):
  • Nationwide Class: All persons who reside in the United States who used the App prior to September 30, 2021.
  • Illinois Subclass: All persons who reside in the State of Illinois and used the App in the State of Illinois to create videos prior to September 30, 2021.
• The Settlement, if approved, would provide $92,000,000 to pay the members of the Settlement Class who file valid claims, as well as to pay Plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees, costs, a service award for the named plaintiffs, and the administrative costs of the settlement. It would also provide injunctive relief to protect App users’ information. The Settlement avoids the further cost and risk associated with continuing the lawsuits; it pays money to those persons whose rights Plaintiffs contend were violated; and it releases Defendants from further liability.
• You may submit a claim on your own behalf or on behalf of your minor child.
• Your legal rights are affected whether you act or don’t act. Read the notice carefully.Can I Still Join the Class-Action Suit?Deadlines for the lawsuit have already passed, according to lawyers. Individuals who wanted to file a claim form to be part of the class-action suit were required to do so by March 1, 2022.Individuals who sought to exclude themselves from the suit were required to make that known by Jan. 31.
  

  How Will Payments be Distributed?

  According to the law firm that filed the suit, those individuals who filed to be part of the class-action suit will receive payments electronically, unless they opted for an alternative form of payment.

  No official date for payments has yet been announced.

  Why Are Illinois Residents in a Separate Class?

  The reason Illinois residents were part of a separate class in the suit is because of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, which imposes strict limits on the way companies can use and share biometric information.

  As a result of that law, Illinois residents who are part of the class-action suit will receive the same share as other United States residents, but will also receive five additional shares apiece, effectively increasing their payout.

  The official number of participants in the class-action suit has not yet been announced, and therefore it is not known how big a settlement payout Illinois residents can expect