User data: TikTok is looking for a partner in Europe to reassure
Faced with the mistrust of European public authorities, TikTok is looking for a partner to guarantee that the data of its users is not transferred to China. This would thus be a case similar to what is happening in the United States.
Data from European TikTok users soon in Europe?
“Western governments have real concerns about China, and therefore, as a Chinese-founded company, we have a greater responsibility to show how we secure our users’ data”declared Theo Bertram, vice-president in charge of public policy in Europe, to AFP.
The social network wants to give pledges after the European Commission’s decision to ban the application on the professional devices of its staff, citing data security concerns. Since then, similar measures have notably been taken by the Canadian government, the European Parliament and by the Danish Parliament, while France is considering a ban for its civil servants.
In the European Union, ByteDance (parent company of TikTok) is also the subject of an investigation by the Irish Privacy Authority, which suspects it of breaching European data protection law ( GDPR) regarding the processing of children’s personal data and data transfers to China.
The same model as in the United States
TikTok therefore wishes to replicate the model implemented in the United States with Oracle, which since the summer of 2022 has been responsible for hosting user data in the country and auditing its algorithms. “All our code is visible to Oracle. We cannot do an update without going through them”underlined Theo Bertram.
If the project, which has already cost $1.5 billion to apply, is approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), “Oracle will push TikTok app updates directly” on the App Stores, a protection which will also benefit Europeans because the application “will be the same”he specified. “To really convince public opinion, we must do the same in Europe”believes the framework. “We are working to create three new data centers and we will also work with a partner”he added, without giving more details at this stage.
Europe is TikTok’s biggest market with 150 million users, including 25 million in the UK. Globally, the application claims more than a billion users.
