Putting IT companies’ power in cage of law

In the WeChat case, the personal information given by the users could also contain facts about their family, business, profession or other sensitive matters. In the Alipay case, the annual consumption record of a user might also contain private information. And as developers of the two apps, Tencent and Alibaba are obliged to protect such information.

Yet in both cases, there is risk of information leak. Especially in the Alipay case, the users’ consumption records can be passed on to Sesame Credit of Ant Financial Services Group, which is an affiliate of Alibaba. Some argue Alipay has made that clear in its electronic agreement with users, but the sentence authorizing it to analyze users’ data appeared in smaller fonts and was

Guo Jun, a lawyer dealing in civil and commercial cases at Jintai Law Firm