Photo: TikTok could face a fine of €500 million (Getty Images) Author: Karina Levitskaya
TikTok could be fined €500 million for illegally exporting data from the EU to China, following an investigation that found breaches of data protection rules.
RBC-Ukraine reports this with reference to Bloomberg.
TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd could be fined more than 500 million euros, equivalent to $552 million, for illegally sending European users' data to China, the publication reported.
The Irish Data Protection Commission, TikTok's main regulator in Europe, is expected to issue a fine against the company by the end of the month, according to people familiar with the matter.
The decision comes after an investigation found a breach of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation when TikTok sent European user data to China for engineers to access.
The fine is likely to be the third largest after the sanctions on
- 1.2 billion euros against Meta (owner of Facebook),
- 746 million euros against Amazon.
However, it is known that the exact amount of the fine and the time of its introduction may change.
US May Buy TikTok
Under a law signed by former US President Joe Biden last year, TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance had until January 19 to find a buyer for the app outside China.
Washington argues that ByteDance's ownership of TikTok makes it dependent on the Chinese government and that Beijing could use the app to conduct influence operations against the United States and collect data on Americans.
TikTok briefly suspended operations in the US earlier this year, but a full shutdown was avoided when US President Donald Trump signed an executive order delaying the law's implementation by 90 days – until April 5 – to give more time to reach a deal.
In late March, Trump confirmed that a deal with TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell the short-video app would be completed by Saturday.
Let us also recall that a few days ago, the American leader said that he would consider reducing tariffs on China. In particular, in order to secure Beijing's support for the sale of TikTok. He noted that each tariff item costs more than the social network.
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