
Photo: VCG
Alibaba’s food-delivery unit Ele.me, NetEase’s cross-border shopping app NetEase Kaola, social e-commerce platform Red (or Xiaohongshu) and 15 other Chinese internet companies had lapses in protection of personal data, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology found in first-quarter spot checks.
A sampling of 106 internet services offered by 100 companies turned up seven major issues affecting protection of personal data, MIIT said. These included collecting personal information without users’ approval, nondisclosure of collection and usage of data and no provision for account cancellation, among others.
MIIT announced a national data security campaign Monday to be rolled out over the next 12 months.
Beijing has vowed to inspect hundreds of popular apps and major companies in the internet and telecom sector by the end of October for cybersecurity issues starting this month after a series of data-related scandals in recent months caught the attention of regulators.
Related: China to Inspect Hundreds of Popular Apps for Data Security
Contact reporter Isabelle Li (liyi@caixin.com)