TikTok to Open Second European Data Centre in Ireland

Video giant TikTok has announced its plans to open a second European Data Centre in Ireland.

The company is in the advanced stages of agreeing a deal with a third-party provider to establish the centre. The company already announced the establishment of an Ireland-based European and UK data centre last year. It also said it is currently in talks to open a third European data centre to sit alongside the two planned operations already announced.

Making the announcement, Rich Waterworth, TikTok’s General Manager Operations – Europe said, ‘Regarding local data storage, in line with the growth of our community, we’re looking to expand our European data storage capacity. We are at an advanced stage of finalising a plan for a second data centre in Ireland with a third party service provider, in addition to the site announced last year. We’re also in talks to establish a third data centre in Europe to further complement our planned operations in Ireland. European TikTok user data will begin migrating this year, continuing into 2024.’

TikTok employs 5,000 people across 10 countries in the European region – Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the UK. The company says it has 150 million users across the European region.

Owned by Chinese company, ByteDance, TikTok has faced questioning for its handling of user data due to its Chinese links.

In its statement today it says it remains focused on building trust with its users and that key to its expansion in Europe is investment in the company’s approach to keeping its European users and their data safe and secure, particularly in the context of new regulation.

Rich Waterworth said, ‘We also remain focused on building trust with our community by demonstrating to them that their data is secure. We’re continuing to deliver against the data governance strategy we set out for Europe last year, which includes further reducing employee access to European user data; minimising data flows outside of Europe; and storing European user data locally.’

The company is due to open a European Transparency Centre in Dublin next month and highlighted the fact it is expanding its workforce to ensure compliance with the EU Digital Services Act (DSA) which covers illegal content, transparent advertising, and disinformation.

Mr. Waterworth said, ‘…We’ll continue to enhance external visibility of the work we do to protect our community, including by opening our physical European Transparency and Accountability Centre in Dublin next month, where expert audiences will be able to learn more about our work to keep people on TikTok safe.’

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