TikTok is under renewed scrutiny from European regulators after the EU’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) opened a second investigation into the Chinese-owned social media platform for allegedly storing European user data on servers in China. The announcement follows a €530 million ($620 million) fine issued in May for similar violations of the bloc’s data privacy laws.
While TikTok had previously claimed European user data was only accessed remotely from China, the DPC revealed Thursday that the company later admitted “limited EEA user data had in fact been stored on servers in China.” The regulator said it has “deep concern” over the integrity of the earlier investigation, noting that TikTok had provided “inaccurate information.”
The new probe will assess whether TikTok has since brought its practices into compliance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Despite major investments in U.S. and European data infrastructure, both whistleblower disclosures and internal admissions have shown TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, continuing to route data through China.
In the United States, President Trump has maintained pressure on ByteDance to sell TikTok’s American operations to a non-Chinese firm. Divestment talks are still underway.
