The Chinese internet watchdog has warned Bing, LinkedIn and more than 100 other apps for illegally collecting and abusing their users' personal data. As the South China Morning Post reports, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) found that 105 apps had violated various of the country's data privacy laws after receiving complaints from users. The ACC then went public with its findings in a notice posted on its official WeChat account. Apps created by several Western and Chinese tech giants were on the list, including ByteDance's TikTok and its Chinese counterpart Douyin, Microsoft's search app Bing and its professional social network LinkedIn, Tencent's music streaming service Kugou and the Baidu mobile browser. The 105 apps that illegally access and over-collect their users' data have 15 business days to rectify these violations or face sanctions from the Chinese government.
Suppression of data privacy
Earlier this month, new regulations from China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) went into effect, and the CAC has since cracked down on apps that violate them. The regulations hold app providers liable for collecting “excessive” user data unrelated to their core services, while forcing users to give uninformed consent about how their data is used, according to the regulation. South China Morning Post. Last year, the Chinese government drafted its new law on the protection of personal information with the aim of preventing privacy violations in the country, which has the most Internet users in the world at 7.7 billion. If passed, the law will fine companies up to €XNUMX million or five percent of their annual revenue for abusing their users' data. Notwithstanding, the minute examination by the CAC of these applications et d'autres fait partie d'une répression plus large en China contre les géants de la technologie du countries, Alibaba ayant été condemné à une amende record d'un billion dollars le last month. Via South China Morning Post