AliExpress, TikTok, and WeChat face EU privacy complaints, here’s why

European privacy watchdog noyb (None of your Business) has filed complaints against AlixExpress, TikTok and WeChat. The privacy watchdog has accused the Chinese tech giants for violating EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as they have failed to offer full access of their personal data to the users. This move by the European watchdog signals increasing scrutiny over how major tech companies handle user data, particularly concerning personal information.As reported by Reuters, the European Centre for Digital Rights (NOYB), filed complaints to the data protection authorities in Belgium, Greece and the Netherlands alleging that WeChat, TikTok and AliExpress either ignored the user requests or offered incomplete and fragmented data files. Under Article 15 of the GDPR, users have the right to obtain a comprehensive copy of their personal data and details about how it is processed.The report further reveals that allegations against Chinese tech giants. As per the complaints filed TikTok has been charged for supplying raw and unstructured data files there were difficult to interpret. The files shared also failed to disclosed the recipients or data transfer details. On the other hand, AliExpress also provided broken data file which could only be accessed once and it did not respond to follow-up requests. WeChat also took around six months to reply to generic instructions. The legal team at noyb’s also argue that failure to comply with these requests violate Articles 12 and 15 of the GDPR, which mandate clear, intelligible, and complete responses to data access requests.The group has asked the regulators to investigate, compel compliance, and consider fines that could reach up to 4% of a company’s global revenue. "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," Kleanthi Sardeli, data protection lawyer at noyb told Reuters.