If you ever were worried about TikTok privacy violations, this decision of the European Commission may increase the concerns.
It seems like the European Union (EU) supports concerns of the United States about TikTok data leaks. The Irish Data Protection Commission decided to fine the company for sharing the user data with the Chinese headquarters.
TikTok has its European office in Ireland, so the Irish government has the power over the company. They applied a $600 million fine this time, which is one of the largest sums imposed under the EU’s data privacy law.
TikTok stores user data on China's servers?
According to the Irish Data Protection Commission, some portion of European user data is stored in China, and the data transfer happens with poor safeguards.
The main concern here is that China's government has effective tools to get access to the data. The reasons could be motivated by antiterrorism, as an example.
At some point, the Irish Commission revealed that TikTok confirmed storing some data on Chinese servers. The New York Times informs that this happened after denying such actions multiple times.
It’s easy to make the assumption that if data sharing happens from the EU to China, the same can occur with users outside of the EU.
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TikTok responses
The company is going to appeal this decision. Their main points are the following.
- TikTok never received any request from China's government about the EU's user data.
- Building data centers with the EU is a big initiative by TikTok.
The court in Ireland should decide on this case. However, for the TikTok users, it’s not about the fine for a pretty profitable company. Now, it’s not only the U.S. government that worries about TikTok data privacy.
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