TikTok has opened its first data center on the European continent, to alleviate concerns about Chinese government surveillance. The company explained that European users' data is now moving to servers in Dublin, as part of its ongoing response to data privacy concerns about its connection to China.
TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, has indicated that it has never provided data to Beijing, but critics fear that the Chinese state could at any time request access to that data. TikTok allows a European security company to review cybersecurity and data protection controls.
The company called this effort Project Clover, in reference to the pivotal role played by Ireland, as this effort runs parallel to the Texas project, which included the promise of similar measures to American lawmakers.
Earlier this year, the platform faced a number of government restrictions on its use for cybersecurity and privacy reasons.
A group of institutions decided to ban the application through the devices of officials, including the United Kingdom government, the European Parliament, the European Commission, and the Council of the European Union.
The main concerns of European security officials relate to the Chinese state's access to data that TikTok holds about its users.
The authorities that imposed the ban warned of Beijing's access to emails, contacts and other communications as a result of the app's presence across devices.
As part of its efforts to alleviate these concerns, the company stores European user data locally. One data center in Dublin is now up and running with plans for two more in Ireland and Norway. TikTok transmits the data of more than 150 million European users through one of these three centers.
“We did not wait for our European data centers to become fully operational, as we began storing the personal data of our users in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom virtually in a designated secure area known as the European Enclave, which is hosted on... Temporarily in the United States.”
In an update on the project , in addition to announcing its first data center on the European continent, the company said: “We are using a third-party security company to independently review our work in the data center.”
TikTok assigned the British cybersecurity company NCC to examine Project Clover’s data controls and report any incidents, as NCC identifies and responds to any suspicious or anomalous access attempts and works to enhance security.
NCC said: “As the project’s external security provider in terms of auditing, monitoring and assurance, this means that platform users in Europe and the UK can trust TikTok’s enhanced data security standards, which exceed European regulatory requirements.”