TikTok wants to build data center in Ireland for European users

Social medium TikTok plans to build a data center in Ireland to store data from European users. Data from Europeans is currently still in the US with a backup in Singapore.

The data center should be operational within one and a half to two years, TikTok told the BBC. The construction is not a response to recent developments around the company. The US government has threatened to ban TikTok from mid-September unless parent company ByteDance sells TikTok’s US arm to an American company. Microsoft is negotiating with ByteDance.

The construction of the data center involves an investment of hundreds of millions of euros. The data is now stored in the US with a backup in Singapore; TikTok says it only stores data from Chinese users in China. There, TikTok is called Douyin and both apps have separate user data.

In addition to the videos, TikTok also collects data from users to adjust advertisements. Critics point out that under Chinese law, the state can claim information from TikTok, even if that information is stored elsewhere.