TikTok Begins Transferring European Users’ Data to Its First Regional Data Center

TikTok has begun transferring the data of its European users to its newly established data center in Ireland. The social media platform, which primarily focuses on videos, has confirmed that its Ireland data center is now operational, marking a significant milestone in its ongoing Project Clover. The initiative was introduced by TikTok in March, following the European Commission’s decision to prohibit its employees from using the app on work devices. Despite announcing plans for the data center in Ireland as early as 2020, TikTok faced delays and had initially anticipated its completion by early 2022, as reported by TechCrunch.

Now that TikTok was able to overcome the issues that caused delays in the launch of the center, it has started the data transfer, which will likely not be completed until the last quarter of 2024. At the same time, another center in Ireland and another in Norway are also underway. construction. The video hosting service has come under heavy scrutiny in recent years, part of its efforts to get authorities to trust the app. In 2022, TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, confirmed that some of its employees, whom it eventually fired, accessed the data of several users, including journalists, in the United States. The revelation came amid state governments banning TikTok from state-owned devices.

In addition to announcing the start of data transfer, TikTok has also revealed that it has secured the services of a company called NCC Group. The UK-based data assurance company audits its data security and protection, monitors its data flows, provides an independent audit and reports incidents where necessary. TikTok says the company monitors data entering and leaving the center so it can ensure only approved employees have access to users’ sensitive data.