TikTok, the video-sharing platform from Chinese company ByteDance, is fighting back in court after being slapped with a €345 million ($363 million) data privacy fine and compliance order by European regulators for failing to properly safeguard the private data of teenage users.
ByteDance Ltd. said it had appealed to the EU's General Court against the penalty, while it was also locally challenging an order from Ireland's main data regulator to eliminate "deceptive or manipulative" practices that could undermine privacy.
TikTok has more than 1 billion users worldwide and is famous for its viral dance challenges. Last week, the company joined MetaPlatforms and Elon Musk's X Corporation as one of a growing number of major social media companies to receive warning letters from the European Union, asking them to take immediate action to stop the spread of misinformation.
The Irish Data Protection Commission fined TikTok in September this year because the app failed to protect minors from unnecessary data processing and did not act in a transparent manner. The investigation covered the five months from July 2020 to December 31, 2020, and found that TikTok’s data processing during this period violated the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation regarding children aged 13 to 17 years old.
Ireland's data watchdog is responsible for all investigations into TikTok under the General Data Protection Regulation, as the platform's current EU base is in Dublin. However, given that the alleged infringements span the EU, the European Data Protection Board - a panel of European regulators responsible for enforcement - must approve the final decision.
TikTok confirmed it had filed an appeal but declined to comment further. The EDPB and Ireland's data watchdog also declined to comment.
The European Data Protection Board, made up of representatives from 30 European countries, expressed concern about the way TikTok "induced" children to create public accounts and default to publishing videos publicly online.
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