TikTok’s Lead EU Regulator Opens Two Data Privacy Probes

TikTok’s lead knowledge privateness regulator within the European Union has opened two inquiries into the Chinese-owned short-video platform associated to the processing of youngsters’s private knowledge and transfers of private knowledge to China.

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, which is lead EU regulator for most of the world’s high Internet companies as a result of location of their regional headquarters, is allowed to impose fines of as much as 4 p.c of world income.

TikTok in August introduced stricter privateness controls for youngsters, in search of to deal with criticism that it has failed to guard youngsters from hidden promoting and inappropriate content material.

Owned by China’s ByteDance, TikTok has grown quickly world wide, notably amongst youngsters.

The first of the probes relates “to the processing of personal data in the context of platform settings for users under age 18 and age verification measures for persons under 13,” the Data Protection Commission stated in an announcement.

The second probe will concentrate on transfers by TikTok of private knowledge to China and whether or not the corporate complies with EU knowledge regulation in its transfers of private knowledge to international locations outdoors the bloc, the assertion stated.

Ireland’s knowledge watchdog earlier this month levied a file EUR 225 million (roughly Rs. 1.960 crores) superb on Facebook’s WhatsApp underneath the EU’s 2018 General Data Protection Regulation regulation (GDPR).

But the watchdog has confronted criticism from different European regulators on the pace of its inquiries and the severeness of its sanctions.

The Irish regulator had 27 worldwide inquiries in progress on the finish of final yr, together with 14 into Facebook and its subsidiaries.

© Thomson Reuters 2021