TikTok will have 3 European data centers and the figure of an external auditor

The platform TikTok has announced the opening of two new data centers in Ireland and Norway to strengthen the protection of European users in this area, and will appoint an external partner to monitor and audit data security.

This was stated this Wednesday at a briefing by Elaine Fox, Head of Privacy for Europe, and Theo Bertram, Vice President of Public Policies and Government Relations, who have insisted that TikTok is not a Chinese company, but a global one, and that they have never transferred user data to the Chinese authorities.

Last year the company announced that it would open its first data center in Dublin, which will be operational before the end of the year. It will have another two, one also in Dublin and a third in the Norwegian region of Hamar -these last two have yet to determine the opening date-.

Currently, the data of European users – which TikTok ensures that they are only used to guarantee a suitable experience and manage advertising if the user accepts it – they are stored in the United States. The opening of the European centers will therefore force the transfer of this data.

This year the data of European users will begin to be stored locally and the migration to the first center in Dublin will continue until 2024.

Once completed, these three data centers will be the default storage location for data from European users of TikTokwith a total annual investment of 1,200 million euros.

Fox and Bertram have also revealed details of the Clover project, with which TikTok wants to create “a safe European enclave” for the data of users of the platform, including those in the United Kingdom.

For this, a European data security partner (another company) will be designated -this figure already exists in the United States through Oracle Cloud-. This partner will oversee and audit data protection and control, data flows, provide independent verification and report any incidents.

Likewise, to improve data access control, the entertainment platform will introduce “safety gateways” -managed by third parties- that limit the access of employees to the data.

“Any access to the data will not only comply with the relevant protection laws, but will also have to go through these additional security gateways and controls first,” ensures TikTok.

It will also work with third parties to incorporate the latest privacy technologies, according to Fox. This includes, among others, the pseudonymization of personal data – so that it cannot be directly attributed to a specific user – or a system known as differential privacy.

“No one has done this before”has summarized Bertram, who has affirmed that from TikTok they have listened to the industry and the institutions: “all these measures will be important” for our European community of 150 million people.

THERE IS NO INTERFERENCE BY THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT

Bertram has referred to the decisions of some governments and institutions to ban TikTok on official devices, citing security problems as it is a Chinese company.

He has denied that this is Chinese: TikTok is an international company, with 60% independent capital -including American investors-, 20% of the founders and the other 20% of employees.

“The Chinese government has never asked us for data and if it did, we will refuse,” The TikTok spokesman has asserted, who has recalled that both the code and the algorithm of the social network, the company and the teams are different in China and in the United States and Europe.

Source: EFE