TikTok’s Irish data centre up and running as European privacy project gets under way

TikTok mentioned Tuesday that operations are underway on the first of its three European information facilities, a part of the favored Chinese owned app’s effort to ease Western fears about privateness dangers.

The video sharing app mentioned it started transferring European person info to an information heart in Dublin. Two extra information facilities, one other in Ireland and one in Norway, are beneath development, TikTok mentioned in an replace on its plan to localise European person information, dubbed Project Clover.

TikTok has been beneath scrutiny by European and American regulators over issues that delicate person information could find yourself in China. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese firm that moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2020.

TikTok unveiled its plan earlier this yr to retailer information in Europe, the place there are stringent privateness legal guidelines, after a slew of Western governments banned the app from official gadgets.

NCC Group, a British cybersecurity firm, is overseeing the challenge, TikTok’s vice chairman of public coverage for Europe, Theo Bertram, mentioned in a weblog put up.

NCC Group will verify information site visitors to ensure that solely accepted staff “can access limited data types” and perform “real-time monitoring” to detect and reply to suspicious entry makes an attempt, Bertram mentioned.

“All of these controls and operations are designed to ensure that the data of our European users is safeguarded in a specially-designed protective environment, and can only be accessed by approved employees subject to strict independent oversight and verification,” Bertram mentioned.

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