The suspicion that i social network Do our data what they have been there for some time, and now another test arrives. At least according to what theEU towards Tiktokagain in the middle of the storm: the very popular Chinese service was hit by a record fine of 530 million euros, inflicted by the Irish commission for data protection (DPC) following serious violations regarding the international transfer of personal data of European users. In practice, according to what emerged, Tiktok would have shot everything in Chinacontravening to current regulations and above all without guaranteeing adequate protection measures against a possible access by the authorities of the Asian country.
The sanctioning action arrives at the end of an in -depth investigation carried out by the DPC, authority competent for the supervision of respect for the general regulation on data protection (GDPR), given that Tiktok has chosen Ireland as European headquarters, as already happened for other technological giants including Google, Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and X. during the investigations The managers of the company would admit the transfer of information, denying what was previously declared. And this passage was considered particularly serious, because it implies the possibility that sensitive data of millions of European users – a large part of the world ones equal to 1.5 billion – ended up under the eye of the Chinese authorities without the adequate protections. The Deputy Commissioner of the DPC, Graham Doyle, said that Tiktok “was unable to verify, guarantee and demonstrate that the personal data of European users, to whom the staff in China had remote access, enjoyed a level of protection substantially equivalent to that guaranteed within the EU”.
This sanction It adds to another imposed in 2023, always by the DPC, when Tiktok was fined for 345 million euros due to the incorrect treatment of minors’ privacy: even then, the company was accused of not having respected the principles of transparency and safety imposed by the GDPR. Two cases in a few years that raise serious questions about the company’s governance, even if Christine Grahn, a spokesman for Tiktok Europe, said that the platform intends to appeal against the decision: “We do not agree – he said – and we reiterate that Tiktok has never provided anything to the Chinese government”. A defense that will have to deal with the evidence collected during the investigation and with the growing diffidence by the institutions of the old continent, just as the final decision on the sale to an American company is expected in the USA. In short, the episode rekindles the debate on an increasingly central theme in the European political agenda, namely that of digital sovereignty: the EU has long expressed concerns about access to data by companies based in non -European countries, in particular when it comes to nations with more opaque regulations on privacy and security.
And this new sanction to Tiktok could represent an important precedent for future checks on other technological platforms operating in the European market without respecting the principles of the GDPR. Chinese or not they are.