TikTok has been hit with a huge €530 million fine by the EU for sending Europeans' personal data to China and failing to ensure it was protected from access by Chinese authorities.

The Chinese social media giant, which is also under scrutiny in the US, admitted during an investigation that it had stored European data in China, contrary to its previous denials, according to the Irish data protection authority.

One of the largest fines ever imposed by the authority was imposed following an investigation into the legality of TikTok's data transfers, AFP reported.

In 2023, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) imposed a €345 million fine on TikTok, which has 1.5 billion users worldwide, for violations of European rules on the processing of children's data.

As TikTok, a subsidiary of Chinese tech giant ByteDance, has its European headquarters in Ireland, the Irish authority is the lead regulator in Europe for the social platform, as well as for others such as Google, Meta, and X.

"TikTok has failed to verify, ensure and demonstrate that the personal data of (European) users to which employees in China have remote access is protected at a level that is essentially equivalent to that guaranteed in the EU," said DPC Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle.

"TikTok has not addressed the potential access of Chinese authorities to (European) personal data under Chinese counter-terrorism, counter-espionage, and other laws that TikTok identifies as significantly diverging from EU standards," Doyle added.

The company plans to appeal the EU fine, insisting that it "has never received a request" from Chinese authorities for data on European users.

"(TikTok) has never provided data on European users to Chinese authorities," said Christine Grahn of TikTok Europe.

"We disagree with this decision and intend to appeal it in full," she added.

The social media company has been in the spotlight of Western governments for years due to concerns that personal data could be used by China for espionage or propaganda.

TikTok also violated the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by transferring user data to China, the DPC said in a statement.

Today's decision "includes administrative fines totaling €530 million and an order requiring TikTok to bring its data processing into compliance within six months," the statement said.

€45 million of the fine was imposed for a lack of transparency between 2020 and 2022, when the platform did not inform users in which countries data was transferred or that it could be accessed from China.

The DPC said its decision also includes an order to stop TikTok transfers to China if the company fails to comply with the six-month deadline.

The fine is expected to increase pressure on the social network in the US.

The US Congress passed a law in 2024 requiring ByteDance to relinquish control of TikTok in the US or be banned in the country.

President Donald Trump has twice postponed, until June 19, the deadline for the sale of the social network, which has 170 million US users. | BGNES