Xiaopeng Automobile, one of the "new car-making forces", was recently fined 100,000 yuan by the Shanghai Xuhui District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau for collecting 430,000 face photos without authorization. This incident quickly rushed to Weibo's hot search yesterday.
According to the penalty decision, 7 stores under Shanghai Xiaopeng Automobile Sales and Service Co., Ltd. installed 22 camera devices with face recognition functions purchased from third-party companies and opened 8 system accounts. From January to June this year, 431,623 face photos were collected and uploaded by related devices. During this period, Xiaopeng did not explicitly inform consumers of the purpose of using face information without the consent of consumers.
Yesterday afternoon, Xiaopeng Automobile responded that it had dismantled the face recognition camera equipment in the store, the uploaded face photos had been deleted by the relevant companies, and there was no leakage or illegal use of personal information. Xiaopeng Automobile expressed its complete obedience to this administrative punishment and made a deep reflection on the matter.
Some netizens proposed that more than 430,000 face photos were fined 100,000 yuan, counting down two dimes for a photo, is the punishment too light? In this regard, the relevant person in charge of the Xuhui District Market Supervision Bureau said in an interview with the News Knows reporter that for the illegal collection of personal information, China's "Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Law" and other clear provisions should be ordered to rectify, notify or warn them, confiscate their illegal gains, and impose a fine equivalent to 1 times to 10 times the amount of illegal gains. Considering that the personal information collected by Xiaopeng Automobile this time was not leaked, not used for commercial purposes, and the company admitted its mistakes sincerely and corrected them in a timely manner, a decision was made to impose a lighter punishment on him.
When it comes to Xiaopeng Motors, it has become a household name in recent years. As a representative of the domestic "new car-making force", Xiaopeng is often together with Weilai and ideal two enterprises, commonly known as "Wei Xiaoli". In recent months, Xiaopeng has even seen a momentum of performance leadership. According to the financial report data, Xiaopeng has won the sales championship for two consecutive months, delivering 15,613 vehicles to users in November alone, an increase of 270% over the same period last year; the cumulative delivery volume from January to November this year, Xiaopeng Automobile is also at the top of the list. At the same time as the rapid growth of performance, Xiaopeng has also fallen into the whirlpool of public opinion several times due to illegal operations. Just over a month ago, a Xiaopeng store in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, was complained by consumers for suspected yin-yang contracts, fraudulent compensation and other behaviors. Afterwards, the official response of Xiaopeng Automobile said that there was a mistake in the operation of the store salesman.
This time suspected of illegally collecting face information, Xiaopeng Motors also said that it was a misuse of the device. The original intention of the store is to collect faces to analyze the passenger flow data, thereby improving the reception process and better serving customers. Whether this is the case or not is still subject to more investigation by the relevant departments. However, for consumers, it is necessary to know more about face information recognition.
Face information, is an individual's unchangeable biological information, due to uniqueness, can be directly identified, and easy to collect, face information has become many people's payment password or account password, once leaked will seriously affect the user's property and privacy security. Therefore, China's "Personal Information Security Norms", "Civil Code" and other laws clearly stipulate that without the consent of the information subject, personal information including face information shall not be collected, and violators will be punished accordingly.
But in life, we must realize that face information recognition is actually a double-edged sword, and the results are completely different in different ways of use.
On the one hand, the camera with face recognition function has many uses, not only can automatically identify customer identity, such as gender, age and other information, but also can set labels for customers individually, just like rights protection car owners, professional counterfeiters, journalists can be marked separately. The collected information can also provide real-time portrait analysis, including multiple dimensions such as user occupation, consumption level, and consumption preferences, which can achieve precision marketing for merchants. It is no exaggeration to say that the moment a customer enters the store, a unique ID is generated. Salespeople can have targeted conversations based on the information contained therein, or even use it for bargaining.
On the other hand, the power of face recognition can easily be abused. At this year's CCTV 315 gala, face recognition equipment operators such as Wandian Palm and Yolok were named for suspected illegal collection of personal information, and merchants such as Kohler Sanitary Ware, BMW, and MaxMara were also blacklisted for illegal use of related equipment. Statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology show that mobile apps are also the "hardest hit areas" for abuse of face recognition technology, and in the third quarter of this year alone, 601 apps were notified for illegal collection and use of personal information or mandatory, frequent and excessive claims, of which 163 have been removed for refusing to rectify.
So, let the face information no longer "run naked", where is the boundary of enterprises using technology? In this regard, Ling Li, associate professor of the School of Information Science and Engineering of Fudan University, said in an interview with the News News Reporter that the application space of face recognition technology is huge, and the collection behavior of enterprises should be legal and compliant, measured and boundary. If there is no boundary, it will lead to the personal privacy of the information subject being continuously exposed to the vast public space, or used by businesses to make profits, or used by criminals to infringe on rights and interests. Ling Li also said that Xiaopeng Automobile was administratively punished for illegally collecting face information, which will also serve as a warning for other companies in the industry. However, only warnings are not enough, and it is also necessary to further refine the binding provisions for violations in different industries, so as to make supervision more intense and more effective.
(Look at the news Knows reporter: Jin Mei Ruan Li Zhang Yunkun)