An upcoming privacy policy change announced by TikTok yesterday for European users — which, for the first time, names China as one of several third countries where user data can be remotely accessed by “certain” company employees to perform what it claims are “important” functions — has arrived months ahead of expected progress on a year-plus long investigation into the platform’s data exports to China under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The GDPR investigation into the legality of the video sharing platform’s data transfers to China is being led by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), the region’s lead privacy regulator, which launched the investigation just over a year ago. The DPC told TechCrunch today that it expects its TikTok data transfers investigation to move forward in the coming months, with a draught decision to be sent to other EU DPAs for review in the first quarter of next year.
