Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Irish DPC’s €530m TikTok fine casts doubt on EU GDPR-compliant transfers to China, challenging reliance on SCCs and raising enforcement risks for multinationals

Published on: 09 May 2025

Published by an LexisNexis Information Law expert

Legal News

Article summary

A substantial penalty, imposed on TikTok on 2 May 2025 by Ireland’s privacy regulator, has sparked serious and widespread doubts over whether any firm exporting personal data to China can do so lawfully under EU data‑protection rules. ByteDance, TikTok’s parent, was hit with a €530m (around $600m) fine after the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) found it had failed to ‘verify, guarantee and demonstrate’ that EU users’ data—remotely accessed by staff in China—enjoyed safeguards ‘essentially equivalent to that guaranteed within the EU’. Concern over data flows to China has further intensified. The US government has now explicitly barred the movement of bulk sensitive personal data or government-related information between US persons and ‘countries of concern’—notably China. ‘The screw is turning on restricting the flow of data to China, under the banner of privacy, national security and competitiveness interests’, Joe Jones, director of research and insights at the International Association of Privacy Professionals, said in an emailed statement. Under the EU GDPR, data may only be sent beyond the EU where the destination does not in any way compromise individuals’ protections. The European Commission has concluded that 16 countries possess ‘adequate’ data‑protection regimes, permitting the frictionless, lawful cross-border movement of personal...

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