China on Saturday denied it required companies to hand over data after TikTok was hit with a massive fine in the European Union for its handling of personal data.
The social media giant was fined €530 million by Irish authorities on Friday for illegally transferring user data from Europe to China and failing to guarantee it was shielded from access by Chinese authorities.
TikTok, whose owner ByteDance is based in China, said it would appeal the decision.
China’s foreign ministry on Saturday said the country “has never and will never require enterprises or individuals to collect or store data by illegal means”.
It also called on the EU and Ireland, home to TikTok’s European headquarters, to “provide a fair, just, and non-discriminatory business environment for enterprises of all countries”.
TikTok said in a statement on Friday that it had never received a request from the Chinese authorities to access European user data.
Friday’s fine was the conclusion of a four-year investigation by the Irish Data Protection Commission, in which TikTok had initially said it did not store European users’ data on servers located in China, before retracting and correcting that statement last February.
The company has faced scrutiny in many countries over national security concerns that user data could be accessed by the Chinese government and worries the platform could spread misinformation.
Several countries have banned the platform for varying periods, including Pakistan, Nepal, and France in the territory of New Caledonia.
Friday’s fine is expected to increase pressure on the social network in the United States.
The US Congress passed a law in 2024 requiring ByteDance to divest control of TikTok in the United States or be banned from the country.
US President Donald Trump has postponed twice the deadline set for the sale of the social network, which has 170 million American users. That latest deadline is set to expire on June 19.
Beijing has consistently denied it accesses data from companies operating overseas and says it abides by local laws.
(om)