STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Austrian advocacy group noyb filed data privacy complaints against China’s AliExpress, TikTok and WeChat on Thursday, saying they failed to comply with European Union laws on providing users with a full copy of their data.
While most tech companies have a tool to fulfil requests for downloading user information, some Chinese companies have made it difficult to access the information, noyb said.
“TikTok, AliExpress and WeChat love collecting as much data about you as possible but vehemently refuse to give you full access as required by EU law,” said Kleanthi Sardeli, data protection lawyer at noyb.
A spokesperson for Tencent, owner of WeChat, said the company complies with regulations in the markets it operates and is committed to protecting user privacy and data security.
TikTok and AliExpress did not respond to requests for comment.
Noyb is known for filing complaints against American companies such as Apple, Alphabet and Meta, leading to several investigations and billions of dollars in fines.
In January noyb filed complaints against six Chinese companies and sought to suspend data transfers to China and called for fines that can reach up to 4% of a company’s global revenue.
(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in StockholmEditing by Mark Potter and David Goodman)
