China Youth Daily recently reported that, in a recent government compliance inspection movement on app infringement of users’ rights and interests, nine products of Tencent had not been rectified as required. Tencent had been warned publicly four times. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has required that all new apps and updates to existing apps must pass government technical inspections before they can be released. Tencent responded to the news report, stating that the company is continuing to update its apps, to protect users’ rights, to cooperate with the regulatory authorities and to conduct normal compliance inspections. Currently Chinese mobile app users have felt strongly that many apps violate the rules of handling users’ personal information. They set up configuration barriers, harass users, and mislead users, among other violations. So far 2.44 million apps have been inspected. Of those, 2,049 apps that violated regulations were notified, and 540 apps that refused to be updated were removed from the app stores. In today’s Chinese app market, new issues such as microphone eavesdropping, communication theft, and unauthorized reading and writing of albums, are frequently exposed. There have been reports on some businesses, such as banks, that have asked employees to pause the use of popular Tencent apps such as WeChat.
Source: China Youth Daily, November 27, 2021
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