Ireland fines TikTok $600 million for illegally sending user data to China

Social network TikTok was sentenced Friday by Irish authorities to a $600 million fine for its failure toensure proper data protection of European users.

The Irish Data Protection Commission was the authority charged with ensuring compliance with European Union rules because TikTok has its European headquarters on Irish soil.

During the investigation, carried out on behalf of the E.U. by Ireland, the platform, which is under the umbrella of Chinese company ByteDance, acknowledged harboring European user data in China, something it had denied until now.

The regulator claimed that TikTok had not adequately assessed the implications of Chinese surveillance laws on the data of Europeans. These Chinese laws would have severely exposed European users' data to Chinese government surveillance and spying.

"TikTok failed to verify, ensure or demonstrate that (European) users' personal data, which can be accessed remotely by employees in China, enjoys a level of protection essentially equivalent to that guaranteed in the EU," said Graham Doyle, head of communications for the Irish regulator.

TikTok is therefore unable to propose safeguards against "potential access by Chinese authorities to this data under Chinese anti-terrorism, anti-spying and other laws identified by TikTok as materially divergent from EU rules," Doyle added in a statement.

TikTok, and its parent company, ByteDance, have announced that they will appeal the imposed sanction for the time being. It maintains that it has never received any request from the Chinese government to access its users' data.

The social networking giant has been in the crosshairs of Western governments for years over fears that China is using its personal data for espionage or propaganda purposes.

TikTok also breached requirements within the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by transferring user data to China, the DPC statement said.