TikTok hit with record fine over children's data collection

China's big global success story on social media has run into trouble in the United States.

Popular video-sharing app TikTok has agreed to pay $5.7 million to settle allegations that it illegally collected personal information from children under the age of 13, such as names, email addresses and their location, CNN reports, citing the US Federal Trade Commission.

The agency said in a statement Wednesday that the TikTok fine is a record for a child privacy case.

TikTok, which belongs to $75 billion startup ByteDance, has more than half a billion users worldwide, giving it an international edge over other Chinese-owned social media platforms, which have struggled to expand outside their home market.

The US fine relates to Musical.ly, a video-sharing app Bytedance bought in 2017 and merged with TikTok last August.

The FTC said its investigation of Musical.ly had "uncovered disturbing practices, including collecting and exposing the location" of young children. Despite receiving thousands of complaints from parents, the company failed to comply with requests to delete information about underage children and held onto it longer than necessary, according to the commission.

TikTok said in a statement that it is committed to "creating measures" to protect users, including tools for parents to protect their kids.

The company on Wednesday introduced a "separate app experience" for younger US users in which they "cannot do things like share their videos on TikTok, comment on others' videos, message with users, or maintain a profile or followers."