TikTok Faces €500M Fine Over EU Data Violations

European regulators are preparing to fine TikTok €500 million for violating data privacy rules.

According to Bloomberg, the decision is being finalized by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission and could be officially announced by the end of the month.

The investigation found that TikTok transferred data from EU users to China, where employees of parent company ByteDance could potentially access it. This breaches the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) enforced across the European Union.

If approved, the fine would be the third-largest in GDPR history — behind only Meta (€1.2 billion) and Amazon (€746 million). In addition to the financial penalty, regulators also plan to ban TikTok from processing EU user data in China.

The controversy comes as ByteDance faces mounting pressure in the U.S., where the company has been given a deadline to sell its American TikTok operations. Amazon is reportedly among the interested buyers and has already sent a proposal to the White House.