Huge fine for Tiktok. What did he do with the data of Europeans
The Tiktok platform was convicted in the European Union on Friday to the payment of a fine of 530 million euros because it failed to guarantee sufficient protection of Europeans in China, from where they are accessible, at a time when the platform is also in the US collimator.
The powerful social network, with 1.5 billion members, is the property of the Chinese byteance group. It has been in the viewfinder of Western governments for many years that are afraid of the Beijing and a possible use of its users’ data for spy or propaganda purposes.
This severe fine, pronounced by the Irish data protection authority, is one of the most important ever applied by the respective body, which acts on behalf of the EU, as the European headquarters of Tiktok, as are those of most technological giants.
According to Graham Doyle, responsible for communication of the Irish regulatory body, the platform has violated the European Data Protection Rules (RGPD), as it failed to demonstrate that the personal data ‘of Europeans,’ accessible to its staff in China ‘, benefits from a level of protection equivalent to the EU.
Tiktok is not able to propose guarantees against the ‘potential access of the Chinese authorities’ to these data through its anti-terrorist and counter-espionage laws, ‘which the platform itself recognizes as being sensitive to European norms’.
The company, which announced its intention to challenge the decision, has six months to make its operations in accordance with RGPD.
The data of Europeans cannot be transferred-that is, stored or made accessible-except in a third country that is considered safe sufficiently by the EU, such as Japan, the United Kingdom or the US. In the absence of such approval, it is the company that has to prove that the level of protection is equivalent, which Tiktok could not.
The DPC decision could grow even more on this social network in the US. The American Congress voted in 2024 a law that requires Bytedance to give up Tiktok control on the US, under threat of prohibition.
However, Donald Trump has postponed two lines, until June 19, the deadline for selling the social network.
The platform states in a statement that he has never received ‘any request’ in this regard from the Chinese authorities, nor did he ever provide data from European users.
This evokes its data protection program in Europe, Clover, which provides for investments of 12 billion euros in ten years.
According to her, the data of Europeans are stored without impediments to Norway, Ireland and the US, and ‘China employees do not have access to restricted data’, such as phone numbers or IP addresses.
DPC, which started its investigation in 2021, shows, however, in the decision that it was informed in April by Tiktok that some data from the Europeans have been stored (and suppressed since) in China, contrary to what the platform had said.
‘We are considering additional regulatory actions,’ says Doyle, saying that these disclosures ‘very seriously’.
DPC also reproaches Toktok a lack of transparency between 2020 and 2022, the platform not indiciting its users to whom countries were transferred and that they could be consulted from China.
From the fine of 530 million euros, 45 million are given for this crime.
The Irish regulatory organization had already applied a fine of 345 million euros to the platform in 2023 because it violated the European rules in treating information on minors.
The most severe DPC fined focused on Meta in 2023: 1.2 billion euros because it continued to transfer data from Europeans to the US, violating RGPD, despite the fears of supervision at that time.
The France Presse Agency, among the 15 fact-returning organizations, is paid by Tiktok in several countries to check the video recordings that could contain any false information.
