Beijing denied on Friday, July 11, asking firms to “illegally” collect and store users’ personal information, after an Irish regulator helping the European Union regulate data privacy began investigating Chinese social media giant TikTok.
“The Chinese government attaches great importance to and protects data privacy and security in accordance with the law,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said.
The social media giant has been in the crosshairs of Western governments for years over fears that personal data could be used by China for espionage or propaganda purposes.
However, TikTok has insisted that it has never received any requests from Chinese authorities for European users’ data.
TikTok was fined € 530 million ($620 million) in May by the Data Protection Commission for sending personal data to China, although the Chinese social media giant had insisted that this data was only accessed remotely.
