TikTok Busted by EU: $600M Fine for Sending Data to China
TikTok just got hit with a thunderous €530 million ($600 million) penalty by EU. One of the largest ever handed down under data protection laws.
Why?
The platform secretly stored and exposed Europeans’ personal data in China, despite denying it for years.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), acting as the EU’s privacy watchdog due to TikTok’s European HQ in Dublin, uncovered that TikTok allowed remote access to user data from China, without proving it was protected to EU standards. Even worse, the platform didn’t clearly inform users where their data was going, or that Chinese law might allow government access.
This bombshell follows a €345 million fine in 2023 over child data violations.
Now, TikTok faces a strict 6-month deadline: fix your data practices or face a suspension of all data transfers to China. The DPC made it clear—data privacy is not optional, even for tech giants backed by Beijing.
TikTok is appealing, claiming it’s never handed over European data to Chinese authorities and pointing to its €12 billion “Project Clover” to reinforce data safeguards across Europe. But the pressure is mounting. In the U.S., lawmakers have passed legislation forcing parent company ByteDance to sell TikTok—or face a ban, with a final deadline looming in June.
TikTok’s data dilemma is no longer just a corporate headache, it’s a global showdown over digital sovereignty and trust.
