TikTok has been slapped with a 530 million euro fine by the EU's data protection regulator over concerns about user information security.

This was reported by Reuters.

The company has been ordered to halt data transfers to China unless compliance is achieved within six months.

The Irish data protection commissioner stated that TikTok, owned by the Chinese firm ByteDance, failed to prove that the personal data of EU users, some of whom are remotely accessible by employees in China, meets the high levels of protection mandated by EU law.

Thus, the short video platform did not address the potential access of Chinese authorities to data under espionage laws, which TikTok has deemed significantly different from EU standards, according to a DPC statement.

TikTok announced it will vigorously contest this finding, asserting that it has relied on its EU legal framework, including so-called standard contractual clauses, to provide strictly controlled and limited remote access. The company plans to appeal the decision.

The company also remarked that the ruling does not fully account for data security measures introduced in 2023, which involve independent monitoring of remote access and ensure that EU user data is stored in specialized data centers in Europe and the US.