TikTok said it would allow Chinese staff remote access to personal data of its European users just days after a senior U.S. regulator called for the social media phenomenon to be banned.
In a blog post, the subsidiary of China’s ByteDance claimed it was making progress toward better data governance in Europe, but tacitly conceded a long-planned data center in Ireland slated to go online late this year was not yet up and running.
As a result, data from users in the European Union, the U.K., Switzerland, and Norway would continue to be stored in the U.S. and Singapore—including shared personal data regarding their approximate location—and could be accessed by its staff in 10 countries around the world, including those in China.
