TikTok fined €530 million over Illegal user data transfers to China 

The penalty was handed down by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), which acts as TikTok’s lead EU regulator due to the company’s European headquarters in Dublin.

The DPC said the short-form video platform breached General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules and has now been given six months to halt all unauthorized data transfers.

The regulator revealed that TikTok admitted in April that European user data had been stored on servers located in China—directly contradicting earlier claims made during the investigation.

The DPC further criticized TikTok for failing to adequately safeguard user information from potential access by Chinese state authorities under Beijing’s national security laws.

“TikTok did not address potential access by Chinese authorities to EEA personal data under Chinese anti-terrorism, counter-espionage and other laws identified by TikTok as materially diverging from EU standards,” said Deputy Commissioner at the DPC, Graham Doyle.

In response, TikTok said it will appeal the decision in full, maintaining that it has never received a data request from Chinese authorities, nor provided any European user data to them.

This latest fine ranks as the third largest ever under the EU’s GDPR framework, trailing penalties against Meta Platforms Inc. (€1.2 billion) and Amazon.com Inc. (€746 million).

In March this year, the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) also disclosed that it was investigating TikTok and Truecaller over data protection issues.

According to the National Commissioner and Chief Executive Officer of the NDPC, Dr Vincent Olatunji, the commission was scrutinising their compliance with data protection laws and would determine the necessary regulatory action based on its findings.

However, unlike the European regulators that continue to impose heavy fines on the tech companies violating its GDPR, the NDPC said its main focus is remediation and ensuring that data processors and data controllers in the country do what is right.