China’s State Internet Information Office (SIIO) on Friday (May 21) notified a total of 105 applications (apps) such as Jieyin, Collage and Baidu of irregularities in the collection and use of personal information. The Internet Information Office also ordered the app operators to carry out rectification.
The Net Office said it has tested the collection and use of personal information of some common types of applications such as short videos and browsers based on the “Network Security Law of the People’s Republic of China”, “Methods for Determining the Illegal and Illegal Collection and Use of Personal Information by Apps”, “Provisions on the Scope of Necessary Personal Information for Common Types of Mobile Internet Applications” and other laws and relevant regulations, and found that 105 applications have Violations.
A total of 19 short video applications were named by the Net Office, which also included popular software such as Jitterbug and Quick Hands. The main problems with these two applications include “violating the principle of necessity by collecting personal information unrelated to the services they provide.
34 browser applications and 51 job-hunting applications, including 360 Browser, Microsoft Bing, Linking and Zilian Recruitment, were also named and notified by the Internet Information Office, and the problems with these applications include “collecting personal information without users’ consent” and “not disclosing the rules of collection and use”. The rules of collection and use are not disclosed” and so on.
Baidu is the only utility application on the list, in addition to “violating the principle of necessity, collecting personal information unrelated to the services it provides”, its problems also include failure to provide the function of deleting or correcting personal information as required by law.
The Net Office said that in response to the problems found in the test, the relevant application operators should complete the rectification within 15 working days from the date of this notice, and send the rectification report with official seal to the Net Office email. If the rectification is not completed after the deadline, the Net Office will be disposed of in accordance with the law.
The arbitrary collection and abuse of Chinese citizens’ personal information, especially by the increasingly popular face recognition system, has increasingly raised concerns about protecting personal privacy. Some analysts believe that under the CCP’s authoritarian rule, the CCP authorities are the biggest threat to the violation of personal information.
Teng Biao, adjunct chair professor at Hunter College of the City University of New York, has previously stated that the government has a very strong ability to grasp citizens’ personal information and can get hold of individual citizens’ information through many channels.
The Associated Press also reported that the crackdown comes as the Chinese government itself is collecting citizen information on a large scale. Some critics have accused Communist authorities of using facial recognition technology to track Uighurs in Xinjiang.
Millions of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities are believed to be held in internment camps in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. They are allegedly subjected to human rights violations in the camps, including torture, forced sterilization, forced abortions, rape and sexual abuse, and political indoctrination. China has consistently denied the mistreatment of Uighurs and the existence of detention camps.
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