Volkswacht Bodensee - EU opens new probe into TikTok data transfer to China

TikTok was fined 530 million euros ($620 million) in May by the Data Protection Commission over European data transfers to China, though the Chinese social media giant had insisted this data was only accessed remotely.

The DPC on Thursday said it had been informed by TikTok in April that "limited EEA user data had in fact been stored on servers in China," contrary to evidence presented by the company.

The regulator said it had expressed "deep concern" in its previous investigation that "TikTok had submitted inaccurate information".

TikTok is a division of Chinese tech giant ByteDance.

But since it has its European headquarters in Ireland, the Irish authority is the lead regulator in Europe for the social platform -- as well as others such as Google, Meta and Apple.

The DPC is tasked with ensuring companies comply with the EU's strict General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), launched in 2018 to protect European consumers from personal data breaches.

It has imposed a number of big fines against tech companies as the EU seeks to rein in big tech firms over privacy, competition, disinformation and taxation.

T.Zimmermann--VB