TikTok announces that it has begun migrating user data from Europe to its data center in Norway, part of the Clover program. This was an investment of 12 billion euros.
The app has 150 million users in Europe Photo Shutterstock
The company developed Project Clover to address data security and privacy concerns for European users raised by European Union authorities.
TikTok planned to build three new data centers in Europe to store European users’ data locally by default. TikTok’s first data center in Eutopa was opened in Dublin, Ireland, it has been operational since last year. The other two centers have locations in Norway and Ireland.
Norway’s first TikTok data center building is now operational. Thus, the migration process of European users’ data, stored in the USA, was initiated. TikTok’s dedicated European enclave, where European user data is now stored by default, is hosted on servers in TikTok data centers in the US and Ireland, and now in Norway.
In addition, TikTok representatives stated that NCC Group, the independent security provider for Project Clover, has also begun continuous monitoring of environments for security gateways that provide additional protection for European data.
“These additional barriers control access to data through supervised security gateways designed to enforce technical protocols, meaning only authorized employees can access certain types of data. For example, starting last summer, new security protocols designed to ensure that restricted data stored in the new European enclave, such as phone numbers and IP addresses, cannot be accessed by employees based in China. NCC Group has inspected the source code for these gateways and will also inspect any future updates. This continuous real-time monitoring will identify and enable TikTok to respond to potential security alerts”according to a press release sent by TikTok.
Project Clover was first announced in 2023. Since then, NCC Group has taken the position of independent security provider and now continuously monitors and audits TikTok’s data security measures. The platform has set up a dedicated European enclave, where the data of its 150 million European users is now stored by default.
TikTok has rolled out additional security barriers to European user data that further restrict access to the data, which is now independently monitored by the NCC Group.
