Irish DPC issues €530m GDPR fine to TikTok
02/05/2025 | Data Protection Commission
The Irish Data Protection Commission has announced its long-awaited final decision following its investigation into TikTok's data transfer practices. The DPC issued fines totalling €530 million, along with an order requiring TikTok to bring its processing into compliance within 6 months.
The decision marks the end of an investigation launched in 2021 to determine whether TikTok's transfer of personal data to China violated the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and if the company met transparency requirements for such transfers.
According to the press release by the DPC, TikTok misinformed the regulator during the investigation by stating that it did not store EU/EEA user data on servers in China. In April 2025, however, the company notified the DPC of an "issue" and that it had, in fact, transferred "limited" data to servers located in China.
The DPC found that TikTok had infringed Article 46(1) of the GDPR for failing to verify, guarantee or demonstrate that its supplementary measures and Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) were "effective to ensure that the personal data of EEA users transferred via remote access were afforded a level of protection essentially equivalent to that guaranteed within the EU."
On the question of transparency, the DPC found that TikTok's 2021 EEA privacy policy violated Article 13(1)(f) of the GDPR.
The DPC issued TikTok a €485 million fine for violating Article 46(1) and €45 million for violating Article 13(1)(f).
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