EU Investigation into TikTok: China Denies Any Involvement
The Chinese government denied on Friday any involvement in the illegal storage of personal data on servers within its territory, following the European Union’s launch of an investigation into TikTok.
“The Chinese government places great importance on the confidentiality and security of data and protects it in accordance with the law,” stated Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning.
According to her, Beijing “has never required, nor will it ever require, companies or individuals to collect or store data illegally.”
“We hope that the European side will respect market economy principles and fair competition, providing a fair, just, and non-discriminatory business environment for companies from all countries,” Ms. Mao added at a regular press conference.
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), which acts on behalf of the European Union, opened an investigation on Thursday against TikTok for storing personal data of European users on Chinese servers, which may violate legislation.
The powerful video-sharing platform, which boasts 1.5 billion members, is owned by the Chinese group ByteDance.
TikTok has been under scrutiny from Western governments for years, due to concerns over its ties to Beijing and the potential use of user data for espionage or propaganda.
The DPC had already fined TikTok €530 million in early May for failing to provide adequate protection for the personal data of Europeans, which, while accessible remotely from China, was stored outside the country.
During this investigation, TikTok acknowledged that some European data had been stored in China (and has since been deleted), rather than merely being accessible.
The company cited a technical issue and insisted that it “has never received any requests” from Chinese authorities and has “never provided European user data” to them.
However, according to the DPC, TikTok was unable to provide guarantees against potential access to this data by Chinese authorities under its anti-terrorism and counter-espionage laws.
The goal of the new investigation “is to determine whether the social media platform has met its relevant obligations under the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), in light of the questioned data transfers,” the DPC explained on Thursday.
This body acts on behalf of the EU because TikTok’s European headquarters, like that of most tech giants, is located in Ireland.
