DUBLIN, April 30 (Reuters) – The Irish Supreme Court on Thursday confirmed that TikTok can continue data transfers from the European Union to China during its appeal against a regulator’s order to halt them over privacy concerns.
TikTok’s lead EU privacy regulator, the Irish Data Protection Commission, fined the short-video platform 530 million euro ($620 million) fine last May and ordered it to suspend data transfers to China if its processing was not brought into compliance within six months.
But the Irish High Court in November imposed a stay on the ban, saying that the risk to consumers from the data transfers was limited and temporary, while the damage that would be suffered by TikTok in the event of a suspension was nearly impossible to quantify.
The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed, saying that the stay should remain in place during the relatively short time until the High Court makes its judgment in the appeal against the fine and the transfer ban, a case that has already been heard.
The Irish regulator says TikTok had failed to ensure any data accessed remotely by personnel based in China was afforded a level of protection essentially equivalent to that provided within the European Union.
TikTok says it has never received a request for European user data from the Chinese authorities, and has never provided European user data to them. It says the Irish regulator failed to fully take into account data security measures first rolled out in 2023 that independently monitor remote access.
($1 = 0.8551 euros)
(Writing by Conor Humphries; Editing by Padraic Halpin)
