China warns internet companies over weak data protection policies
Industry regulator singles out Baidu, Ant Financial and ByteDance, the operator of news app Jinri Toutiao, for inadequate data privacy measures
The Chinese government has admonished the country’s internet companies in light of mounting complaints over breach of privacy, as more than 700 million people on the mainland share personal information to digital services that they use everyday like those for online search, shopping and investing.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said internet search provider Baidu, Alipay operator Ant Financial Services Group and Beijing ByteDance Technology, which runs popular news aggregator Jinri Toutiao, had been negligent in telling users about how collected personal data is used, according to a statement posted on the regulator’s website on Friday.
Its move followed a series of media reports about how the services operated by those three companies have misled users and violated their privacy.
Baidu, ByteDance and Ant Financial were also directed by the MIIT to immediately make the appropriate improvements in protecting user data.
“All the internet companies must not collect user information that is not necessary for providing services, must not use the information for purposes other than providing services, must not illegally sell or provide user information to others,” the MIIT said.
