Trump says U.S. and India to continue trade negotiations
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday (9 September) his administration is continuing negotiations to address trade barriers with India and that ...
TikTok was fined 530 million euros ($600 million) by its lead EU privacy regulator on Friday over concerns on how it protects user information and was ordered to suspend data transfers to China if its processing is not brought into compliance within six months.
Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) said TikTok, owned by China's ByteDance, failed to show that EU users' personal data, some of which is remotely accessed by staff in China, was afforded the high level of protection provided for under EU law.
As a result, the short-video platform did not address potential access by Chinese authorities to the data under counter-espionage and other laws identified by TikTok as materially diverging from EU standards, the DPC said in a statement.
TikTok said it strongly contested the finding and that it has used the EU's own legal framework, specifically so-called standard contractual clauses, to grant tightly controlled and limited remote access. It plans to appeal the ruling.
It also said the decision fails to fully consider data security measures first rolled out in 2023 that independently monitor remote access and ensure EU user data is stored in dedicated data centres in Europe and the United States.
TikTok, which has grown rapidly among teenagers around the world in recent years and has 175 million users across Europe, added that it has never received a request for EU user data from the Chinese authorities, and has never provided data to them.
"This ruling risks setting a precedent with far-reaching consequences for companies and entire industries across Europe that operate on a global scale," TikTok said in a statement.
The DPC also found that while TikTok said throughout the four-year inquiry that it did not store EU user data on servers in China, it disclosed last month that it discovered in February that a limited amount was stored in China and since deleted.
"The DPC is taking these recent developments very seriously. We are considering what further regulatory action may be warranted," DPC Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said.
It is the second time TikTok has been reprimanded by the DPC. It was fined 345 million euros in 2023 for breaching privacy laws regarding the processing of children's personal data in the EU.
The powerful Irish privacy regulator, the lead regulator in the EU for many of the world's top tech firms due to the location of their regional headquarters in Ireland, has also fined the likes of Microsoft's, LinkedIn, X and Meta, opens new tab since it was given sanctioning powers in 2018.
Under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), that also covers European Economic Area member states Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, the lead regulator for any given company can impose fines of up to 4% of its global revenue.
AnewZ has learned that India has once again blocked Azerbaijan’s application for full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, while Pakistan’s recent decision to consider diplomatic relations with Armenia has been coordinated with Baku as part of Azerbaijan’s peace agenda.
A day of mourning has been declared in Portugal to pay respect to victims who lost their lives in the Lisbon Funicular crash which happened on Wednesday evening.
The UK is gearing up for Exercise Pegasus 2025, its largest pandemic readiness test since COVID-19. Running from September to November, this full-scale simulation will challenge the country's response to a fast-moving respiratory outbreak.
A Polish Air Force pilot was killed on Thursday when an F-16 fighter jet crashed during a training flight ahead of the 2025 Radom International Air Show.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday (9 September) his administration is continuing negotiations to address trade barriers with India and that he would talk to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, raising hopes of a deal after weeks of discord.
Poland said it scrambled its own and NATO air defences to shoot down drones on Wednesday after a Russian air attack on western Ukraine, the first time in the Ukraine war that Warsaw has engaged assets in its airspace.
Soldiers patrolled the streets of Kathmandu on Wednesday, amid indefinite curfew in Nepal's capital following two days of deadly anti-graft protests that prompted Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli to resign.
A bipartisan group of U.S. House of Representatives lawmakers will travel to China later this month, marking the first congressional delegation visit since 2019, according to NBC News.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth met Singapore’s Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing on Tuesday to discuss military cooperation and security in the Asia-Pacific region.
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