It is claimed by the video platform that the new facilities will reduce the amount of personal information leaving the EU as well as restrict employee access to personal information. To ease fears about data privacy and Chinese access to user information, Chinese social video giant TikTok plans to open two new data centers in Europe. The “ban TikTok train” is likely to gain further momentum due to the Chinese government’s access to users’ data, experts warn, but experts agree that this will not be enough to settle the minds of regulators either.
It is important to recognize that the new data security regime, called “Project Clover”, comes amid growing concerns among European and American politicians as well as following a decision by the European Parliament, European Commission, and the Council of the European Union to condemn the use of the app by its staff. Legislators and regulators are concerned that allowing this app to be used on official phones will give Chinese government officials access to user data, which they believe is illegal. It has been a long-time denial on the part of TikTok that it passes data from devices in Europe or the US back to Beijing.
A second data centre is expected to be opened in Ireland and another in the Hamar region of Norway as part of the new program, both of which will be run by an undisclosed third party as part of the new initiative. On behalf of ByteDance, Oracle is responsible for managing the user data of TikTok in the US. TikTok’s vice president of government relations, Theo Bertram, said in a statement that TikTok is committed to ensuring compliance with all government regulations. Please tell us what the problems are, and then let’s work together to find solutions to them. It’s the kind of approach we’ve been taking in the US, and it’s the kind of approach we’ve been taking everywhere. He explained that our approach is to make sure that governments, regulators, and experts can give us their counsel and advice on how we could do this even more effectively.
According to TikTok, this is a similar project to “Project Texas”, which is currently taking place in the US, and this project aims to reduce the amount of data that is transferred out of the European Union, as well as the level of access employees have to the user data within the company. Data access controls that we have in place already greatly limit the access that users have to their data. As we continue to build on our data security approach in the US, we are further enhancing these controls by introducing security gateways that will determine employee access to the European TikTok user data and data transfers outside of Europe, the company said.
It will add another level of control over access to data. Moreover, any data access will not only have to comply with the relevant data protection laws, but it will also have to go through these security gateways and additional checks before any EU user can access it, it added, confirming that it would also introduce external oversight of EU user data. “It will be monitored and reviewed by a third-party European security company who will examine our data controls and protections, monitor data flows, provide independent verification, and report any incidents that may occur.”
There is a minority of people who do not agree that this will be enough to stop the ongoing calls for an outright TikTok ban. In my view, this ‘ban TikTok train’ is barreling forward regardless of how ByteDance feels about it and how much they try and work to convince us collectively that it is not the case,” says Shelly Kramer, principal analyst at Futurum Research. In reality, governments are aware that any Chinese-based company is ultimately under the control of the Chinese government since they are the majority owners of the company.
