Online privacy advocates have once again taken aim at three major Chinese tech firms—TikTok, AliExpress, and WeChat—for allegedly breaching the data rights of European users.
The complaints were filed on Thursday by None of Your Business (Noyb), a Vienna-based campaign group known for its bold privacy lawsuits.
The group accused the companies of denying users access to their own data, a right protected under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Chinese Tech Firms Under Fresh Fire
Earlier in January, Noyb lodged complaints against six Chinese-owned tech firms. These included fast fashion giants Shein and Temu, and smartphone maker Xiaomi, alongside TikTok, AliExpress, and WeChat.
While Shein, Temu, and Xiaomi have since responded with more data disclosures, “AliExpress, TikTok, and WeChat continued to violate the GDPR,” said Noyb in a new statement.
The group has now escalated its complaints by filing separate legal actions in Greece, Belgium, and the Netherlands, demanding regulators impose fines and compel full compliance.
“All three tech companies have failed to comply with access requests… This makes it impossible for European users to exercise their fundamental right to privacy,” Noyb said.
The group stressed that without transparency, users remain in the dark about how their personal data is being processed, stored, or transferred abroad.
TikTok in the Crosshairs Again
According to Noyb, TikTok responded only partially to a complainant’s request, and “in an unstructured form that was impossible to understand.”
TikTok has not issued a formal response to these latest accusations. However, the company has faced increasing scrutiny from European regulators over the past year.
In May, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) slammed TikTok with a €530 million (₦946 billion) fine for sending user data to China without proper safeguards. TikTok argued that the data was only accessed remotely and not stored in China.
Ireland’s DPC oversees TikTok in the EU, as the platform’s European operations are based there.
In the wake of mounting concerns, Chinese authorities last week denied allegations of unlawful data collection. Officials insisted that China does not compel firms to “illegally collect or store user information.”
But these denials have done little to sway critics.
“Chinese apps are even worse than US providers,” Noyb stated on Thursday, referring to previous lawsuits the group has launched against tech giants like Meta and Google.
Since its founding in 2018, Noyb has repeatedly pushed for stricter enforcement of GDPR, especially against large non-European platforms.
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