Exclusive: TikTok’s Project Clover will change the game for data privacy in the EU

TikTok announces a Europe-wide initiative aimed at gaining the trust of users and regulators. The company has implemented a new program called Project Clover, which will serve, according to TikTok’s European vice president of government relations and public policy, Theo Bertram, to create “a secure enclave for European TikTok users’ data”.

TikTok DOWNLOAD

With Clover, TikTok is trying to calm the waters in the face of European regulators, who have established a series of bans on the use of the app. While TikTok is not currently banned outright in any European country, it is banned on official European Commission devices, and may soon be banned on government devices in the UK.

TikTok’s new program would therefore be an effort by the company to curry favor with European regulators by collecting a series of specific commitments for this region and taking into account existing concerns about data capture, something that is increasingly palpable with the Digital Services Act (DSA), which has been implemented across the European Union since November last year.

According to TechCrunch, with the Clover project, TikTok is combining some previously announced initiatives with new privacy and security efforts. The company plans to open new data centers in Europe, to be located in Ireland and Norway. The latter data center would run entirely on renewable energy.

Clover will also introduce new data access and control processes, including “security gateways” that will have the function of determining which employees can access European user data. And, as a measure of particular importance, TikTok will engage an independent security firm on European soil in order to audit its data controls and practices.

A series of measures that will be welcomed by regulators, even if the shadow of a ban continues to loom over TikTok in the United States, where a bill is making its way through that would give President Joe Biden the ability to ban the app nationwide.