TikTok faces €500M fine for transferring EU data to China
What's the story
TikTok's parent company ByteDance Ltd. is staring at a privacy fine of over €500 million.
The penalty stems from the alleged illegal transfer of European users' data to China.
Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC), TikTok's main regulator in Europe, is likely to impose the penalty before the end of April, reported Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the matter.
Breach revealed
Investigation reveals breach of EU's data protection regulations
The upcoming fine comes after a lengthy investigation that determined ByteDance violated the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The investigation found that the company transferred data to China for its engineers to access, breaching EU privacy laws.
TikTok can appeal this decision in Irish courts if it chooses to do so.
Notably, the penalty could be one of the largest ever imposed by the Irish DPC, after fines of €746 million against Amazon and €1.2 billion against Meta.
Regulatory action
Irish DPC's directive to halt unlawful data processing
The Irish DPC is likely to direct TikTok to stop the illegal processing of data in China within a certain period.
This comes as part of the commission's continued crackdown on tech giants moving personal data of European citizens outside of the EU.
The commission had previously fined TikTok €345 million in September 2023 for allegedly mishandling children's personal data.
Business implications
ByteDance faces deadline for TikTok's US operations
The news of the fine comes as ByteDance is racing against time to find a buyer for TikTok's US operations by April 5, or face the risk of having the app banned in America.
Reportedly, Amazon has submitted a last-minute bid to buy this business.
This development further complicates the ongoing scrutiny and challenges being faced by TikTok across the globe.