DUBLIN (Reuters) -Ireland’s powerful Data Protection Commission (DPC) has opened a new inquiry into TikTok over the storage of European users’ data in China after the short-video platform disclosed in April that some data had temporarily been stored on Chinese servers.
TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, was in May fined 530 million euros ($620 million) by the Irish commissioner over concerns on how it protects European users’ information, some of which is remotely accessed by staff in China.
The new inquiry, by TikTok’s lead regulator in the EU as its European headquarters is located in Ireland, will look specifically at the storage of data in China, which was not considered in the previous probe.
The Irish regulator said in May that while TikTok had told it throughout the four-year inquiry that it did not store EU data in China, it disclosed in April that it had discovered two months earlier that a limited amount of data was stored in China and since deleted.
A spokesperson for TikTok said the company discovered the issue itself and “promptly deleted this minimal amount of data from the servers and informed the DPC.”
“Our proactive report to the DPC underscores our commitment to transparency and data security,” the spokesperson said.
TikTok is appealing the May 2 fine and said the ruling risked setting a precedent with far-reaching consequences for companies and entire industries across Europe that operate on a global scale.
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(Writing by Conor Humphries and Padraic Halpin; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Philippa Fletcher and Susan Fenton)
