TikTok, a Chinese-owned video sharing platform, faces two inquiries from data regulators in the European Union (EU) regarding the processing of children’s information and the transfer of user data to China.
The IrishData Protection Commission (DPC) states that it will first consider processing personal data in the context of platform settings for users under the age of 18 and age verification measures for users under the age of 13. statement Released on September 15th.
The second question asks if TikTok will transfer EU user data to China, where the parent company ByteDance is located.
Data protection commissioner Helen Dickson warned of a data transfer issue in March. Irish Times..
“According to TikTok, EU data will be transferred to the United States instead of China, but we understand that there is. [a] Chinese maintenance engineers and AI engineers may be accessing the data, “said a report citing Dixon’s speech at an online event.
In July, the Dutch Data Protection Agency fined Tiktok $ 885,000 for failing to provide a privacy statement in Dutch. According to the agency, children may not understand how the app collects, processes, and uses personal data.
Dutch privacy regulators statement TikTok established a business in Ireland during the investigation and forwarded some of the findings to the Irish Data Protection Commission.
The EU’s strict privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), allows only one regulatory agency to oversee the operations of multinational corporations within the block.
“From that point on, the breach itself had already ended, so the DPA was only allowed to evaluate TikTok’s privacy statement,” said Monique Verdier, vice-chairman of the Dutch Data Watchdog, in a statement. increase.
“Currently, the Irish Data Protection Commission needs to complete the investigation and make a final decision on other possible privacy breaches investigated by the DPA.”
Under the GDPR, businesses can be fined up to 4% of global revenue. ByteDance reported revenue of $ 34.3 billion in 2020, up 111% year-on-year.
Ireland’s Privacy Watchdog fined WhatsApp a record $ 265 million earlier this month for violating the GDPR. Regulators said they have received complaints about how apps process personal data, including users and users who do not use WhatsApp, since the enactment of the GDPR in 2018.
“This includes information provided to the data subject regarding the processing of information between WhatsApp and other Facebook companies,” the statement said.
TikTok is in dire straits in the United States due to security concerns of Chinese owners.
“The threat is that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can … use TikTok to collect sensitive information about Americans,” Ken Buck, R-Colorado, said in a previous interview with The Epoch Times.
The Trump administration tried to ban TikTok in August 2020, stating that the CCP could use the app to spy on Americans, but the order was not enforced as a result of several court orders. President Joe Biden lifted the ban in June and instead ordered the Commerce Department to review apps related to the Chinese administration on national security risks.
Kathy He contributed to this report.
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