The European Union’s lead privacy watchdog, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, has opened a fresh investigation into TikTok after the video-sharing app acknowledged that some European user data had been stored on servers in China. The regulator said the inquiry, announced on 10 July, will examine whether the transfers complied with the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation and whether adequate safeguards were in place when data left the EU, where China is not deemed to provide an equivalent level of protection. The case follows a separate probe that concluded earlier this year with a €530 million fine against the ByteDance-owned platform for similar violations. At that time TikTok maintained that European data were only accessed remotely from China, not stored there, but later revised its position. The DPC said the discrepancy raised “deep concern” about the integrity of the earlier findings and warranted further regulatory action. TikTok said it had itself reported the latest incident after discovering the issue through “Project Clover,” its ongoing €1 billion plan to build three European data centres to localise user information. The company added that the amount of data involved was minimal and had been deleted. Under GDPR, breaches can trigger fines of up to 4 percent of global annual revenue, leaving TikTok potentially exposed to additional penalties if violations are confirmed.