The TikTok app announced on Wednesday that it will store the data of its European users starting this year 2023, in three centers, two of which are in Ireland and one in Norway, to "reassure European public authorities," who have expressed distrust in the platform.

Eileen Fox, TikTok’s Chief Privacy Officer in Europe, said in an online press briefing that the data of European users is currently stored in Singapore and the United States.

Facing the distrust of European public authorities, the video-sharing app TikTok, owned by the Chinese giant ByteDance, announced working with a European "partner" to ensure that its users’ data is not transferred to China, similar to measures taken in the United States.

Theo Bertram, Vice President of Public Policy in Europe, also announced that this project, named "Clover", is worth 1.2 billion euros, has been underway for 6 months, and will allow restricting TikTok employees’ access to the data.

He added: "As we did in the United States, we will build a secure environment surrounding this data to prevent access from outside the region."

Guarantees:

One of the platform’s global heads, the General Counsel of ByteDance, Erik Andersen, is touring Europe this week, where he spoke with political officials in Brussels, London, and Paris, and is scheduled to head to The Hague.

TikTok seeks to provide assurances to Europeans and Americans after many governments and institutions banned the app from their employees’ work devices, citing concerns related to data security.

Also, both the European Parliament and the European Commission have banned the app from mobile devices, as has the Danish Parliament. The Czech cybersecurity agency "NÚKIB" warned on Wednesday that the app poses a "security threat" if downloaded on devices connected to sensitive data.

Europe is considered the largest market for TikTok with 150 million users, including 25 million in the UK, while the app is used by more than a billion worldwide.