The Irish Supreme Court confirmed on Thursday that TikTok can continue transferring data from the European Union to China. This will last while the company appeals a regulator’s order to stop these transfers due to privacy worries.
TikTok’s main EU privacy watchdog, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), fined the short-video platform 530 million euros ($620 million) last May. It also told TikTok to stop transferring data to China if its data handling practices weren’t fixed within six months.
However, in November, the Irish High Court put a hold on this ban. The court said that the risk to users from the data transfers was small and temporary. It also noted that the harm TikTok would suffer from a suspension would be almost impossible to calculate.
The Supreme Court agreed on Thursday. It stated that the hold should remain in place for the relatively short time until the High Court makes its final decision on the appeal against the fine and the transfer ban. That case has already been heard.
The Irish regulator argues that TikTok failed to make sure any data accessed remotely by staff in China had a level of protection equal to what’s provided within the European Union.
TikTok, on the other hand, says it has never received a request for European user data from Chinese authorities and has never given them any European user data. It also claims that the Irish regulator did not fully consider data security measures that TikTok started using in 2023, which independently monitor remote access.
This legal battle highlights the ongoing tensions between data privacy regulations in the EU and the operations of global tech companies. The Supreme Court’s decision provides a temporary relief for TikTok, allowing it to maintain its current data flow while the core legal arguments are being resolved. The ultimate outcome of the High Court appeal will have significant implications for how TikTok and other international companies handle user data across borders.
