By Granth Vanaik

April 4 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms ( META ) has rebuffed

an attempt by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to amend a 2020

privacy settlement, noting that it had voluntarily disclosed two

technical errors related to its Messenger Kids app to the

agency.

Meta disclosed the bugs in July 2019, the Facebook-parent

said in a filing on Thursday, adding it had spent $5.5 billion

on its privacy program and related privacy initiatives.

The FTC did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for

comment.

In question is an existing 2020 Facebook privacy settlement

to ban profiting from minors' data and expand curbs on facial

recognition technology. The FTC has said it wants to tighten the

settlement.

The agency has accused Meta of misleading parents about

protections for children.

In March, a U.S. appeals court ruled that the

Instagram-owner cannot stop the FTC from reopening a probe into

its Facebook unit's privacy practices for now, despite Meta's

objections that it already paid a $5 billion fine and agreed to

a range of safeguards.

Meta, which has denied misleading parents about privacy

risks, sued the FTC in November in a broad constitutional

challenge against the agency's ability to be both an

investigative body and an adjudicative one.