TikTok fined 540-M euros for data transfers to China

Anadolu, Philippine News Agency

The penalty is the third largest ever imposed by the DPC, trailing only Amazon’s 746 million euros fine and Facebook owner Meta Platforms’ record 1.2 billion euros sanction. (Pexels Photo)

LONDON – TikTok has been hit with a 530 million euros (USD601 million) fine by Irish data protection authorities on Friday for breaching European privacy rules, marking it one of the largest penalties ever imposed under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The ruling follows a lengthy investigation by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), which found the Chinese-owned platform violated GDPR by transferring European users’ personal data to China, where it was accessed by engineers.

The penalty is the third largest ever imposed by the DPC, trailing only Amazon’s 746 million euros fine and Facebook owner Meta Platforms’ record 1.2 billion euros sanction.

The DPC concluded that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, failed to implement adequate safeguards around how personal data from users in the European Economic Area (EEA) was accessed overseas.

“TikTok’s personal data transfers to China infringed the GDPR because TikTok failed to verify, guarantee, and demonstrate that the personal data of EEA (European Economic Area) users, remotely accessed by staff in China, was afforded a level of protection essentially equivalent to that guaranteed within the EU,” DPC Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said in a statement.

“As a result of TikTok’s failure to undertake the necessary assessments, TikTok did not address potential access by Chinese authorities to EEA personal data under Chinese anti-terrorism, counter-espionage, and other laws identified by TikTok as materially diverging from EU standards.”

TikTok has said it would appeal the decision and warned the ruling could have sweeping consequences for other global companies handling cross-border data flows. (Anadolu)