By Supantha Mukherjee and Foo Yun Chee

STOCKHOLM/BRUSSELS, Jan 16 (Reuters) - TikTok, Shein,

Xiaomi ( XIACF ) and three other Chinese companies were named in

a privacy complaint filed on Thursday by Austrian advocacy group

Noyb which claimed the firms were unlawfully sending European

Union user data to China.

Noyb is known for filing complaints against American

companies such as Apple ( AAPL ), Alphabet and Meta

, which has led to several investigations and billions

of dollars in fines.

Vienna-based Noyb (None Of Your Business) said this is their

first complaint against Chinese firms.

Noyb has filed six complaints in four European countries for

suspension of data transfers to China and is seeking fines that

can reach up to 4% of a firm's global revenue.

Noyb said Alibaba's ( BABA ) e-commerce site AliExpress,

retailer Shein, TikTok and phone maker Xiaomi ( XIACF ) admit to sending

Europeans' personal data to China, while retailer Temu and

Tencent's ( TCTZF ) messenger app WeChat transfer data to

undisclosed "third countries" likely China.

Under European Union's General Data Protection Regulation

(GDPR) privacy regime, data transfers outside the EU are only

allowed if the destination country doesn't undermine the

protection of data.

"Given that China is an authoritarian surveillance state, it

is crystal clear that China doesn't offer the same level of data

protection as the EU," said Kleanthi Sardeli, a data protection

lawyer at Noyb. "Transferring Europeans' personal data is

clearly unlawful - and must be terminated immediately.

Chinese companies, notably ByteDance-owned TikTok, have been

facing off with regulators in various countries. TikTok is

planning to shut its app for U.S. users from Sunday, when a

federal ban on the social media app is due to come into effect.

The European Commission is also investigating TikTok over

its suspected failure to limit election interference, notably in

the Romanian presidential vote in November.