The popular social media app TikTok is under pressure from both Europe and the US. Criticized for data security, Tiktok announced that it will keep user data in Europe.
The European Parliament, the European Commission and the European Council recently made an important decision for TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. Europe had banned the application on official and personal devices of staff, claiming that TikTok shared user data with the Chinese government. Now, TikTok has announced that it will keep user data in Europe by extending the white flag attached to the olive branch to the continent.
TikTok Will Keep User Data in Europe
TikTok announced the data security standard it called Project Clover in its announcement. Accordingly, TikTok commits to keep user data in Europe, reducing export data and employee access to user data. TikTok had previously implemented the Project Texas program to address the concerns of the US.
“We are a compliance company,” said Theo Bertram, vice president of government relations and public policy. Tell us what the problems are and then we’ll work on solutions together. “That was our approach in the US and everywhere else,” he said.
European Company to Control Data Centers
TikTok said last year that it would set up Ireland’s Dublin data center. Today’s announcement adds two more data centers to this. One of these data centers will be in Dublin and the other in Hamar, Norway. The operation of these data centers will be provided by a third-party European security company.
This security firm will oversee and control the data center. TikTok says it will store user data locally starting this year, but the transition will last until 2024. In addition, these three data centers are expected to represent an annual investment of 1.2 billion euros when fully operational. Meanwhile, US legislatures have given the executive new powers that allow it to ban TikTok and other foreign technologies if they pose a national security threat.
