Tiktok was fined 530 million euros ($600 million) on Friday for violating the European Union's data privacy law after it discovered that regulators improperly transferred users' personal data to China.
Announced the penalty, Ireland's Data Protection Commission said that Tiktok failed to properly protect data from European users, including some available to Chinese staff, in violation of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulations, the data privacy law.
The fine is one of the biggest imposed under the law, adding to the challenges faced by Bitedan, the Chinese owner of Tiktok, amidst the US efforts to force non-Chinese companies to sell the platform or to be banned in the US. Irish authorities said that if they do not meet certain requirements, Tiktok will be ordered to halt data transfers to China within six months.
European regulators said Tiktok's weak safeguards placed risky information on users across the bloc of 27 countries. Irish authorities said the Chinese government could have access to data from those users under its anti-terrorism and anti-spion laws.
Tiktok, which has around 175 million users in Europe, said in a statement it complies with European Union laws. The company “has never received requests for European user data from Chinese authorities and has never provided them with European user data,” Tiktok said.
Tiktok said he plans to appeal the decision. He said this is a move that could set up a long-standing court battle with the Irish government, Tiktok's leading regulator in Europe. Tiktok's European headquarters is located in Ireland, and its government is responsible for implementing general data protection regulations.
Tiktok said the Irish Data Protection Commission has not considered the 2023 initiative, which will spend 12 billion euros on fences on data for users within the European Union. The project included the construction of a data center in Finland.
“This ruling risks setting precedents with widespread consequences across European companies and industries operating globally,” Tiktok said in a statement.
On Friday, Ireland's regulators said last month that Tiktok discovered a “limited” amount of user data was stored on servers in China after repeated denials.
Graham Doyle, vice-chairman of Ireland's Data Protection Commission, said in a statement.
