TikTok faces fresh European privacy investigation over China data transfers
By KELVIN CHAN LONDON AP TikTok is facing a fresh European Union privacy study into user details sent to China regulators disclosed Thursday Related Articles Ford recalls over cars in the US due to prospective fuel pump failure What I learned from my first meeting with a financial advisor What to know and what isn t known yet about US tax deductions for tips and overtime pay Chicago firm makes th St Paul acquisition with Degree of Honor apartments Average long-term US mortgage rate rises to ending a five-week slide The Facts Protection Commission opened the inquiry as a follow up to a previous examination that ended earlier this year with a million euro million fine after it located the video sharing app put users at liability of spying by allowing remote access their records from China The Irish national watchdog serves as TikTok s lead figures privacy regulator in the -nation EU because the company s European headquarters is based in Dublin During an earlier scrutiny TikTok initially recounted the regulator it didn t store European user material in China and that records was only accessed remotely by staff in China However it later backtracked and explained that a few content had in fact been stored on Chinese servers The watchdog responded at the time by saying it would consider further regulatory action As a outcome of that consideration the DPC has now decided to open this new inquiry into TikTok the watchdog explained The purpose of the inquiry is to determine whether TikTok has complied with its relevant obligations under the GDPR in the context of the transfers now at issue including the lawfulness of the transfers the regulator explained referring to the European Union s strict privacy rules known as the General Records Protection Regulation TikTok which is owned by China s ByteDance has been under scrutiny in Europe over how it handles personal user information amid concerns from Western functionaries that it poses a precaution peril TikTok noted that it was one that notified the Evidence Protection Commission after it embarked on a records localization project called Project Clover that involved building three evidence centers in Europe to ease measure concerns Our teams proactively discovered this issue through the comprehensive monitoring TikTok implemented under Project Clover the company declared in a declaration We promptly deleted this minimal amount of evidence from the servers and informed the DPC Our proactive record to the DPC underscores our commitment to transparency and material precaution Under GDPR European user details can only be transferred outside of the bloc if there are safeguards in place to ensure the same level of protection Only countries or territories are deemed to have the same facts privacy standard as the EU but China is not one of them
