21st Century Business Herald reporter Li Runzezi reported from Guangzhou
Recently, some media reported that Century Jiayuan tacitly allowed salespeople to view users' private personal information at will, including photos of the opposite sex and chat records browsed by members, in order to achieve "precision marketing". On December 7, Century Jiayuan responded to the above questions by saying that there had been serious violations of abuse of authority to consult user information in the work, and the company had begun to remove this function in the background.
The 21st Century Business Herald reporter opened the Century Jiayuan website and found that when the user uses the chat function in the privacy policy of its platform, the information released and the interaction behavior generated will be stored in the server in an encrypted manner.
Gao Ruiming, a lawyer at Beijing Dehe Heng (Guangzhou) Law Firm, pointed out in an interview that the Century Jiayuan platform opened the right to view the photo records and chat records of the opposite sex browsed by members for the purpose of "precision marketing", which was suspected of violating the obligation of personal information protection.
On November 1, China's Personal Information Protection Law came into effect, and each platform updated its privacy policy in accordance with the law, and Century Jiayuan was no exception.
The 21st Century Business Herald reporter found that the effective date of Century Jiayuan's privacy protection policy is November 2, 2021. The privacy policy shows that when users use the functions of Century Jiayuan, messages, search, video, blind date, chat, and personal data, the uploaded photos, various information released and the interaction behavior generated will be stored in century jiayuan's server, because storage is necessary to achieve this function; century jiayuan will be stored in an encrypted manner. Unless the user chooses or complies with the relevant laws and regulations, Century Jiayuan will not use it for other purposes other than this function.
However, according to media reports, Jiayuan employees can view the user's private personal information at will in the background, including the photo records and chat records of the opposite sex browsed by members. In addition, the professional identity of the "sales red bride" relies on fraudulent "packaging" and "red line" words and words outside the words to attract members to the store to pay for cards, to be "trusted" to catch customers, to see people to quote and other issues.
On December 7, Century Jiayuan made a public response to the problems reported by the media, saying that it is better to provide users with more accurate matching and introduction, and at the business level, some user information is opened to some of the company's front-line staff, so that the front-line staff (red bride) can actively discover the user's problems and actual needs, so as to better serve users. However, in actual work, there have been serious violations of the abuse of authority to consult user information, and the company has an unshirkable responsibility. At present, the company has begun to remove this feature in the background.
(Source: Century Jiayuan official Weibo)
Gao Ruiming said that for the purpose of "precision marketing", the Century Jiayuan platform opened the right for store staff to check the photos and chat records of the opposite sex browsed by members, which was suspected of violating the obligation to protect personal information. Century Jiayuan shall perform the corresponding obligations of personal information processors in accordance with the provisions of the Personal Information Protection Law, such as: formulating internal management systems and operating procedures, classifying and managing personal information, reasonably arranging the operational authority of practitioners, and regularly conducting security education and training.
Hu Gang, deputy secretary-general of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Internet Society of China and lawyer of the China Consumer Association, pointed out in an interview with the 21st Century Business Herald that operator employees can view users' personal information at will, including photos of the opposite sex browsed by members, chat records and other behaviors, in addition to suspected infringement of citizens' personal information, but also suspected of infringing on citizens' freedom of communication.
It is worth noting that the apology letter of Century Jiayuan only responded to the tacit consent of salespeople in the survey to browse the user's private information at will, and did not mention other investigation issues.
In fact, the problem of protecting the personal information of users of Century Jiayuan has a long history, as early as 2011, it was hacked due to lax database protection. Since then, Century Jiayuan has been exposed to the problem of violating privacy and leaking user information many times.
Similar incidents continued as of March. According to reports, a woman in Hangzhou borrowed 130,000 yuan in the century Jiayuan blind date unsuccessfully, the platform "Red Lady" also leaked the woman's private information to the man without authorization.
In July 2020, among the 58 apps that infringed on the rights and interests of users notified by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the "Century Jiayuan" (version 8.19.2) APP of Shanghai Huaqianshu Information Technology Co., Ltd. was reported to collect personal information privately and share it with third parties without permission. It is worth noting that many marriage and dating apps such as Zhen'ai Network have also been notified by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology for rectification due to infringement of user rights and interests.
On the black cat complaint platform, the cumulative number of complaints of Century Jiayuan has exceeded 4,000, and the number of complaints in 30 days has also reached nearly 200. Combing found that in the complaints against Century Jiayuan, in addition to inducing consumers, malicious deductions, difficulties in refunding fees, false publicity and other issues, there are also consumers who claim to have encountered the problem of personal information leakage.
Previously, the Southern Finance and Economics Compliance Research Institute had conducted a personal information protection compliance evaluation on 20 social information apps, showing that Century Jiayuan's personal information protection compliance score was low, and there were problems such as the inability to close personalized recommendations, and the failure to notify and obtain authorization for third-party SDKs alone. In this regard, Gao Ruiming said that the platform should strictly perform the statutory obligations stipulated in the Personal Information Protection Law, and at the same time should strictly carry out self-discipline supervision to protect the legitimate rights and interests of users, and the regulatory authorities should actively supervise such situations and guide and urge the platform to perform its statutory obligations.
In addition to information leakage and privacy violations, the dating platform has also been criticized for "killing pigs", and Century Jiayuan is no exception. In this report, it was also mentioned that Century Jiayuan's "sales of red brides" has the behavior of allowing "pig killing plates".
"Pig killing plate" is one of the common fraud methods in the social platform of marriage and love, mainly by creating a love dating scam, gaining trust, so as to defraud a large amount of money.
Previously, a number of "pig killing plate" incidents were exposed to occur on the century jiayuan. In 2017, WePhone founder Su Xiangmao was tricked into marrying and committing suicide, which pushed Century Jiayuan to the cusp of public opinion. At that time, Su Xiangmao's suicide note said that he and Zhai Xinxin met in century Jiayuan, but they did not expect that Zhai Xinxin concealed his marriage history, loved to lie, extorted money when Su Xiangmao proposed divorce, and used the divorce agreement to take away more than 10 million yuan from Su Xiangmao.
Later, there were also incidents in which a 31-year-old female master of a famous school in Beijing was defrauded of 750,000 yuan by the "boyfriend" she knew on Century Jiayuan in less than 4 days in the name of investing in electronic money.
In September this year, the Consumer Protection Commission of Jiangsu Province conducted a survey on five online dating platforms of Century Jiayuan, Baihe Network, Zhen'ai Network, NetEase Huatian and My Lord Liangyuan, and the results showed that the platform information audit problem was serious, and the unqualified rate of information audit reached 93.3%. The Consumer Protection Commission of Jiangsu Province pointed out that the behavior of marriage and love platforms that only care about sales and no review has exposed consumers' personal, emotional and property to huge risks, which has seriously violated consumers' right to safety.
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