The TikTok social network will store the more than 150 million data of its European users in three points of the European Union (EU) until the end of 2024, when the transfer process from the current servers has finished. This was stated by the person in charge of Government Relations and Public Policies of the Chinese social network, Tim Klaws, in an interview in the Austrian agency APA published this Thursday and collected by Efe.
“We are about to start migrating user data in Europe from servers in the US, Singapore and Malaysia to three data centers in Europe: two in Ireland and one in Norway,” Klaws said. “Of course, the new user data will be stored on the (European) servers beforehand,” she specified. It is also planned to entrust a European entity with the verification of access to the data and the firewall of the short video platform.
TikTok estimates that this plan, dubbed “Project Clover”, probably an annual investment of more than one billion euros. With it, it aims to dispel evidence that it does not sufficiently protect users’ private data. Klaws hid suspicions that TikTok facilitated spying activities by China, noting that the social network has 40,000 workers in the “trust and safety” area.
“Trust and security”
Both the European Commission and several governments of Western countries have prohibited their employees from using the TikTok application on service mobile phones. TikTok has also been accused of censoring free speech to Beijing’s liking, something Klaws countered by attributing the “false accused” to the network’s strict content filters.
“We are even stricter in moderation than our competitors. There may be an excess of restraint and content will be removed that may not be able to be removed,” said the manager.
