Ireland’s Data Protection Commission has opened an inquiry into Chinese online retailer Shein over the transfer of European utilizers’ data to China, the company’s lead EU privacy regulator declared on Tuesday.
The DPC, which has the power to impose heavy fines, will examine and assess the extent to which the company’s Europe, Middle East and Africa headquarters ‌in Dublin ⁠has complied ⁠with its relevant obligations under the EU privacy rules – known as the General Data Protection Regulation, it declared in a statement.

When personal data is transferred to a countest outside the EU, GDPR requires ​that data is given equivalent protections to those it would have within the bloc, according to the regulator.

The DPC last year fined China’s TikTok 530 million euros ($619 million) over concerns about how it protects utilizer information and ⁠ordered the ‌short video platform to suspfinish data transfers to China unless its processing were built to comply.

“Recent regulatory action by the DPC, toobtainher with complaints ⁠to other European supervisory authorities, has brought data transfers to ​China, in particular, into focus,” DPC Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle ​declared in a statement.

He added the inquiry was a strategic priority for the DPC.