complaints filed in Europe against Chinese companies, including Shein, Temu and TikTok

TikTok, Temu, Shein, AliExpress, Xiaomi and WeChat: six Chinese companies are the subject of six complaints filed on Thursday January 16 in five European countries. They are accused of illegally transferring the data of their European users to China.

“The transfer of personal data of Europeans is clearly illegal and must be stopped immediately”Kleanthi Sardeli, the lawyer for the non-governmental organization None of Your Business (NOYB), said in a statement. This association based in Vienna, Austria, fights against alleged infringements by online actors regarding data protection, regulated in the European Union (EU). It is already at the origin of numerous procedures, including one recently targeting the French social network BeReal.

In the present case, the complaints were filed by individuals, whose requests for access to their held data remained unanswered: in Greece, against the video sharing application TikTok and the smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi, in Italy against the fast fashion distributor Shein, in Austria against the online sellers AliExpress in Belgium and Temu, and in the Netherlands against the WeChat messaging service. All are legally represented by NOYB before the national data protection authorities.

“The competent authorities must act quickly”added Kleanthi Sardeli, specifying that China was “an authoritarian state practicing surveillance [des citoyens] ». Or “European legislation is clear”according to NOYB: “Transfers outside the EU are only permitted if the destination country does not infringe data protection. » EU member states have a duty to “protect the fundamental rights of the persons concerned”estimated the association.

A “new front” for the EU

Agence France-Presse contacted TikTok, but the social network did not wish to comment. For his part, a Xiaomi spokesperson said he was examining the “allegations” who are “formulated” in the complaint, ensuring that the data of its users is “stored and processed in accordance with local laws”. “In the event that a national data protection authority approaches Xiaomi in the future due to this complaint, we will fully cooperate with the authority to resolve the matter”he added.

NOYB believes that “the rise” Chinese applications opens a “new front” for the EU on data protection. It asks the authorities to impose an administrative fine of up to 4% of the companies' overall turnover, or 1.35 billion euros, for example, for Temu.

To date, NOYB has filed approximately 800 complaints against web giants, including companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon. In Meta's case alone, his actions led to “administrative fines of more than 1.5 billion euros”she recalls.