Irish Data Regulator Probes into TikTok Over Data Stored in China
Ireland's influential Data Protection Commission announced that it has launched a fresh investigation into TikTok for storing user data from Europeans on Chinese servers.
In May, the Irish commissioner fined TikTok, which is controlled by China's ByteDance, 530 million euros ($620 million) for sending customer data from Europe to China.
Since TikTok has its headquarters in the EU and is registered in Ireland, the EU's top regulator is conducting a fresh investigation that will focus on data storage.
In contrast to its statements in the earlier investigation, TikTok told the DPC in April that it had found in February that "limited" EEA user data had really been kept on servers in China.
The DPC stated that it was "taking the April disclosure very seriously" and "considering what further regulatory action may be warranted," expressing its profound worry that TikTok had provided false information to that investigation.
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The data protection commissioners, Dr. Des Hogan and Dale Sutherland, have now made the decision to launch a new investigation against TikTok in order to ascertain if the social media platform has complied with its GDPR duties.
TikTok's actions under the GDPR legislation's paragraphs on transparency information in regard to third country transfers, duties to cooperate with the supervisory authority, and compliance with the pertinent requirements for third country transfers will be especially examined in the investigation.
Following penalties of €1.2 billion and €746 million imposed on Meta and Amazon, TikTok has already stated its intention to contest the DPC sentence, one of the biggest imposed by the authority.
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In this decision, the Irish SA issued administrative fines of €530 million, of which €45 million was for violating Article 13(1)(f) GDPR and €485 million for violating Article 46(1) GDPR.
After six months from the time allotted for an appeal against the Irish SA's final decision, the Irish SA ordered the suspension of the data transfers and required TikTok to comply with Chapter V of the GDPR in its processing operations. According to the Irish SA, TikTok should be given six months to terminate the transfers in the given conditions.
US President Trump has stated that he expects to have found a US buyer before TikTok's US ban is postponed until September.