By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Indiana&nbsp;sued&nbsp;Chinese-owned short-video sharing app&nbsp;TikTok&nbsp;on Wednesday over allegations that it is deceiving&nbsp;users about China's&nbsp;access&nbsp;to their&nbsp;data&nbsp;and exposing children to&nbsp;mature&nbsp;content.
The office of&nbsp;Indiana&nbsp;Attorney General Todd Rokita, a Republican, said the popular app, owned by ByteDance, violates the state's consumer protection laws by not disclosing the&nbsp;Chinese&nbsp;government's potential to&nbsp;access&nbsp;sensitive consumer information.
TikTok&nbsp;also deceived young&nbsp;users and their parents with its age rating of 12-plus in Apple's and Google's app stores, Rokita's office said in a complaint filed on Wednesday. The complaint added that inappropriate sexual and substance-related&nbsp;content&nbsp;can easily be found and are pushed by the company to children using&nbsp;TikTok.
Indiana&nbsp;said its actions were the first of its kind by a U.S. state. Rokita is seeking emergency injunctive relief and civil penalties against the company.
A spokesperson for the video sharing app said it did not have a comment on the pending litigation.
The legal action was first reported by the New York Times.
Also on Wednesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said he ordered all Texas state agencies to ban&nbsp;TikTok&nbsp;on government-issued devices. Abbott tweeted that the&nbsp;Chinese&nbsp;Communist Party poses a growing threat to U.S. cybersecurity.
The actions by&nbsp;Indiana&nbsp;and Texas followed an emergency directive issued a day earlier by Maryland Governor Larry Hogan that prohibited the use of&nbsp;TikTok&nbsp;on state government devices and networks.
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem last week signed an executive order barring state employees and contractors from installing or using&nbsp;TikTok&nbsp;on state-owned devices and South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster on Monday asked a state agency to ban&nbsp;TikTok&nbsp;from state government phones and computers.
TikTok&nbsp;has said the concerns prompting state bans were largely fueled by misinformation.
Last month, FBI Director Chris Wray said&nbsp;TikTok's U.S. operations raised national security concerns, flagging the risk the&nbsp;Chinese&nbsp;government could harness the video-sharing app to influence&nbsp;users or control their devices.
Former President Donald Trump in 2020 attempted to block new U.S.&nbsp;users from downloading WeChat and&nbsp;TikTok, which would have effectively blocked the apps' use in the United States, but lost a series of court battles.
President Joe Biden in June 2021 withdrew Trump's executive orders that sought to ban the downloads and directed the Commerce Department to conduct a review of security concerns posed by the apps.
(Reporting by Kanishka SinghEditing by Sandra Maler)

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Indiana sues TikTok alleging Chinese access to user data, mature content exposure