TikTok can redact information from confidential documents in appeal against €530m DPC fine

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Social media giant TikTok has successfully applied to the High Court for permission to redact certain information from confidential documents to be used in its appeal over a €530 million fine imposed by the Data Protection Commission (DPC) over Chinese access to user information.

At the High Court on Friday, Judge Rory Mulcahy was told by Emily Egan McGrath, for TikTok, that there had been “broad” agreement between the two sides on categories of information underpinning what could be redacted in documents in the appeal.

Egan McGrath said the redactions were for commercially, technically and financially sensitive information contained in their papers, and that some 6,000 pages of documentation were involved in the case.

Counsel said that should certain information not be accepted as confidential and made public, it could be used by competitors, or expose it to risk from “bad actors”, possibly resulting in damage to her client.

Francis Kieran, barrister for the DPC, said the data watchdog was neither objecting nor consenting on what information was to be redacted from court papers and was granted liberty to apply to the court on the matter by the judge should they have future objections.

The judge maintained a stay on the €530 million DPC fine and had “no hesitation” in granting the order sought. He was told that the full appeal was on track to proceed on March 3rd next.

In November, when granting the stay on the fine, the judge said he was satisfied that TikTok would suffer significant damage if required to implement the “suspension and corrective orders” imposed by the DPC in advance of the appeal against the decision.

The DPC imposed the fine on the company last May. The appeal is being brought by TikTok Technology Ltd. TikTok Technologies UK Ltd has been joined in the case as it will ultimately be responsible for paying any fine.

That court heard that TikTok user data originating in the European Economic Area is not stored in China, but is accessible to Chinese engineers. The DPC order requires that this remote access ceases and that the processing of the data must be brought into compliance, which addresses potential issues around storing of data.

TikTok claims, among other things, that the DPC breached fair procedures in arriving at its decision. There was also an alleged failure to engage with material TikTok put before the DPC, which denies the claim.

Mulcahy said that in circumstances where the DPC accepts that there is a serious issue to be tried, the objective of the court was to seek to ensure the least risk of injustice pending the hearing of the appeal.

He said he was satisfied that the scale of the damage to TikTok, if the stay was not granted, was nearly impossible to quantify, that there was a limited prospect of the company never being able to recover the loss if successful in its appeal and that damages could not be regarded as an adequate remedy.