Tiktok has a fine of millions for having illegally sent user data to China | Science, climate and technology news

Tiktok was sentenced to a fine of 530 million euros (452 ​​million pounds sterling) because it illegally sent data on users in China, the private life guard dog of Ireland said on Friday.

The Ireland data protection committee found that data transfers from the social media application China has violated strict rules of data confidentiality in the EU.

He also imposed a fine of the company not to be transparent with users on how their data has been processed.

Tiktok was ordered to comply with the rules within six months.

The data protection commission is Tiktok powerful lead regulator in the EU because the European headquarters of Tiktok is based Dublin.

“Tiktok has not verified, guaranteed and demonstrated that the personal data of [European] Users, accessible remotely by staff in China, received a level of protection essentially equivalent to that guaranteed within the EU, “said Commissioner Graham Doyle in a press release.

Tiktok plans to appeal and said that the decision focused on a “selection period” which ended in May 2023 and “does not reflect the guarantees now in place”.

He specifically referred to a data location company called Project Clover which saw three new data centers built in Europe.

“The facts are that Project Clover has some of the most stringent data protections in industry, including unprecedented independent surveillance by the NCC group, a main European cybersecurity company,” said Christine Grahn, European chief of public policies and government relations in Tiktok.

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Tiktok’s parent company is based in China and has been examined in the EU on how it manages user data.

There have been a long time ago, also expressed by American politicians, on how Chinese authorities could access and use this data.

The guard dog said Tiktok failed to resolve “potential access by the Chinese authorities” to the personal data of European users.

Chinese laws justifying that access, for reasons such as anti-terrorism, counterintelligence, cybersecurity and national information, has been identified as “materially divergent” of EU standards.

Grahn said Tiktok “never received a request from European user data from the Chinese authorities and never provided them with European user data”.

Under the EU rules, known as the Data Protection General Regulations, European user data can only be transferred outside the block if guarantees are in place to ensure the same level of protection.

Ms. Grahn said that Tiktok was “chosen” despite the use of the “same legal mechanisms” as the thousands of other companies in Europe.

The survey, which opened in September 2021, also noted that Tiktok’s privacy policy was not called third countries, including China, where user data was transferred.

The guard dog said that the policy, which has since been updated, has not explained that data processing involved “remote access to personal data stored in Singapore and the United States by China-based staff”.