Ireland has imposed a fine of 530 million to send the personal data of the European users of the social network of short videos to China, where the main headquarters of the company is located. In addition, the Irish data protection authorities give the company a half year to adapt to European standards. “Tiktok infringed the data protection regulations in relation to its data transfers from European Economic Space Data [además de los 27, abarca a Noruega e Islandia] To China and its transparency requirements, ”concludes Dublin.
(DPC), Graham Doyle, that Tiktok “did not verify or guaranteed or demonstrated that the personal data of the Europeans, who remotely accessed China, had the level of protection equivalent to the one that claims the EU.” Not carrying out these checks, the social network owned by Bytedance “did not evaluate the potential access of Chinese authorities to personal data under Chinese laws against terrorism, espionage and other norms […] divergent from European, ”adds Doyle.
The Chinese company has responded to this Friday explaining that the ruling “focuses mainly on a specific period of time a few years ago, before 2023 ″. And, in addition, it rejects not having carried out evaluations on that“ potential access of the Chinese authorities ”,.
“This decision runs the risk of sitting a precedent with important consequences for companies and entire sectors throughout Europe that operate on a global scale and is a hard blow to the competitiveness of the European Union,” says Tiktok, a social network that can still operate in the United States thanks to an extension granted by President Donald Trump on a rule that forces to interrupt its service in that country for national security. To overcome it,.
The transfer of personal data of users by technology companies is one of the most complex issues that have to handle these types of companies. The European Regulation requires that this operation be authorized by a decision of the Commission in which it is established that the country to which it is sent guarantee a level of protection according to it. And even this is not enough sometimes, as the EU Court of Justice has sentenced twice with the Free Freight of Signed Agreements between Brussels and Washington.
This research on Tiktok has been carried out by Irish authorities because Tiktok’s continental headquarters is located on this island, such as practically all of the large technological companies. That is the reason why this type of file is usually the responsibility of the DPC. However, that does not mean that the rest of European data surveillance bodies have nothing to say.
“On February 21, 2025, the DPC presented a decision project” to the coordination body that exists in the EU, the European Data Protection Supervisor, to which the national authorities of the rest of the EU belong. “There were no objections to the decision project,” adds the Irish statement.
It has not always been like this. For example, a couple of years ago Dublin had to correct his decision project, in this case on goal, because he planned to impose a fine that other regulators of the continent considered scarce.
This fine is one of the greatest imposed so far for breaching the data protection regulations. However, it is not the highest, since the punishments received by the Americans, 1.2 billion, and Amazon, 746 million. In the first case, the reason for the fine was very similar to that which has caused the sanction to the Chinese company.
