"Welcome, please scan the code to order food when you enter the door." In a large chain of beef noodle restaurant brands in Beijing, Shell financial reporters were told to scan the code to order food as soon as they entered the door.
This beef noodle shop is located near several office buildings, and at lunchtime, many white-collar workers come to eat, and one of the shops is hard to find. In stark contrast to the number of customers is the number of service personnel in the store. With the exception of one person responsible for recycling dishes and chopsticks, and several people responsible for serving meals, there is basically zero communication between other employees and customers in the store. Most employees are either busy moving goods or busy taking out orders. Items such as tableware, paper towels, and basic spices are placed in a corner of the restaurant and are used by customers themselves. Inside the large restaurant, there is not a single menu in sight. After entering the door, almost all consumers tacitly picked up their mobile phones to scan the code and ordered food.
This has become the norm in many restaurants.
Recently, the Beijing News shell financial reporter conducted a field visit and investigation on the problem of scanning codes and ordering food that had attracted widespread attention before. In the field investigation, Shell financial reporters found that in shopping malls and large chain restaurants, the phenomenon of excessive request for personal information by scanning codes and ordering food still exists. In addition, the phenomenon of paying attention to the public account before ordering, adding employee WeChat to view the full menu, and only actively providing a form of ordering by scanning the code to order food also appears from time to time.
A small program technology provider told Shell Financial Reporter that in the background of the small program, merchants can arbitrarily choose the degree of information request, "even if they do not obtain mobile phone number, geographical location and other information, it still does not affect the customer's order." If this is the case, then why do merchants still need to over-ask for personal information such as mobile phone numbers and locations? Some technology providers said that almost all businesses that use scan code ordering mini programs will put forward follow-up marketing needs, and their own companies not only provide ordering procedures, but also provide a series of precision marketing strategies, including asking consumers for authorization to conduct user portraits, and accurately pushing marketing information according to user portraits.
In this regard, a lawyer told Shell Financial Reporter that consumers were forced to over-authorize personal information when scanning codes to order food, which violated consumers' right to fair trade and independent choice. Merchants shall clearly inform and keep personal information confidential when collecting consumers' personal information, and merchants shall not send commercial information to consumers in the case of explicit refusal by consumers.
In February this year, the Shanghai Municipal Supervision Bureau issued the first "Guidelines for the Specification of "Scanning Code Ordering" in the Catering Industry" (hereinafter referred to as the "Guidelines"), which clearly stated that restaurants should not only provide a way to order food by scanning codes, let alone force consumers to pay attention to the public number of restaurants by scanning codes to order food, and at the same time, merchants should not force and excessively claim power when ordering. In March 2021, the China Consumer Association issued a notice that scanning codes to order food should not become a "single choice topic". In December 2021, Tencent pushed a notice to Mini Program developers on the issue of self-examination of "scanning codes and ordering food mandatory attention to public accounts", making it clear that from January 17, 2022, illegal public accounts will be restricted from the ability to open public accounts in QR codes.
The "chaos" of scanning code ordering still exists, behind excessive claims, build user portrait precision marketing
Entrance prompts to scan the code to order food, mandatory authorization to order food, restaurants do not see paper menus, the process of personal information deletion is complicated, authorization information is used for follow-up marketing...
Shell financial reporters scanned the code in the above-mentioned chain beef noodle restaurants and found that if they want to order food, consumers must authorize personal mobile phone numbers, location information, WeChat nicknames and avatars to the Mini Program, of which the mobile phone number also needs to be verified by SMS before it can be used. If the consumer chooses to "allow" the authorization, according to the "Third Party User Information Authorization Instructions", it means that the consumer tacitly agrees to the Mini Program privacy policy of the catering brand. When the Shell financial reporter checked the privacy policy, he found that the information that the developer of the ordering mini program can collect and process includes the user's WeChat nickname, avatar, location information, mobile phone number, album permission, microphone permission, camera permission, and even the Number of WeChat movement steps, invoice information and other content. For the information obtained, the privacy policy shows that the developer keeps the information for the shortest time necessary to achieve the purpose of processing. In addition, the privacy policy shows that if a consumer wants to access, copy, correct, or delete personal information, he or she can contact the mobile phone number provided.
Pictured: The above-mentioned beef noodle shop privacy policy content.
After authorizing the login, the reporter calls the reserved phone in accordance with the privacy policy and wants to delete personal information, but the person who answers the phone does not have the right to delete the information. Subsequently, the reporter contacted the manager of the restaurant, who said that the reserved telephone information on the privacy policy had not been updated in time, and the restaurant could provide manual ordering services. In addition, the restaurant manager has repeatedly stressed that the personal information collected by the Mini Program is only used for ordering.
For the saved mobile phone number and other information, another employee in the store told reporters that "the follow-up is mainly used for marketing", for example, the store launches preferential activities and notifies consumers to come to repurchase in the form of text messages.
In this visit and investigation, Shell financial reporters visited a total of 23 catering stores, of which 21 stores support scanning code ordering, 5 stores do not or do not take the initiative to provide paper menus, and 20 stores scan codes to ask users for authorization. Among the stores that ask users for authorization, there are only 5 stores that users can continue to order and pay without providing mobile phone numbers, geographical locations, WeChat nickname avatars and other information after scanning the code, namely Happy Lemon, Manner Coffee, McDonald's, Heytea and Naixue's Tea.
Summary table of ordering status survey of 23 restaurants.
Among them, the McDonald's Ordering Mini Program provides two login modes for tourists and members, and can order and pay as a tourist after agreeing to the relevant privacy terms. The four stores of Happy Lemon, Manner Coffee, HeyTea and Nesher's tea will continue to jump out of the claim prompt in the follow-up links. For example, Manner Coffee has a total of 5 pop-up windows before and after, which are used to request location information, WeChat login authorization, WeChat nickname avatar, and two mobile phone numbers. Other beverage shops such as Tea Tai Drink, DQ Ice Cream, Michelle Ice City, Hongu Tea, etc. cannot continue to use the Mini Program to order food after the reporter refuses to authorize personal information. However, these stores offer manual ordering services.
The Manner coffee Mini Program checkout interface authorizes the application.
In addition to the excessive claim of the Mini Program, the phenomenon of scanning the code and ordering food after paying attention to the public account still exists. The two-dimensional code provided by the two stores of "Tea of the Palace" and "Nanjing Big Brand Stall" are all WeChat public accounts of the store, and consumers can only receive the ordering link after paying attention to the public account.
Pay attention to the WeChat public account in Nanjing big-name stalls to get an ordering link.
Another dessert shop called "Bon Cake" ordered a QR code for the employee's WeChat QR code, the employee told reporters that after adding his WeChat, he will send the menu over.
The store menu sent to reporters by Bon Cake store employees.
The product introduction interface of a certain ordering mini program technology provider shows that the ordering mini program launched by itself can carry out customer marketing in a variety of ways. The first way to play is to pay attention to the public account to place orders, lock powder, promotion and two mistakes - forced attention to the public account to order food, for the public account strong drainage. Follow-up targeted push activities, promotions and other preferential information, each push is a stimulus to customers, massive activities "rushing in", so that customers from the heartbeat to action, once again into the store is easy. In addition, there are introductions such as obtaining user information through authorization for follow-up marketing.
Among the 21 stores visited by Shell financial reporters that support scanning codes and ordering food, the proportion of stores that require users to authorize personal telephone, geographical location, and WeChat nickname avatar and other information has reached 95.2%. So is this information necessary for online ordering?
Shell financial reporter consulted the above-mentioned ordering Mini Program technology provider as a catering merchant, and told reporters that the merchant can freely set the degree of mini program claim in the application background, "even if the mobile phone number, geographical location and other information is not affected by customer ordering." In addition, the technology provider also said that through the user authorization of the merchant can know the scope of the customer's frequent activities, age, contact information and favorite meals and other information, so as to accurately push the activity information during the event, attracting consumers to repurchase. For example, requesting geographic location information can obtain the user's frequent activity range, requesting WeChat nickname avatar and other information can locate individual users, record ordering preferences, and request phone information can push marketing information through SMS and other means.
When the Shell financial reporter asked users about their concerns about the privacy of personal information, the technology provider said, "Users will click on the default to agree to the privacy terms before using the Mini Program, and to a large extent, we have been exempted from liability."
Should the scan code ordering user authorize private information such as mobile phone number and location?
Some experts told Shell Financial Reporter that consumers were forced to over-authorize personal information when scanning codes to order food, which violated consumers' right to fair trade and independent choice. Some experts believe that the key is that the merchant should fully inform consumers of the purpose of using the requested information, and give consumers the right to choose.
Is it reasonable for a scan code ordering merchant to require consumers to authorize personal information, such as mobile phone number, personal location, etc.? How should consumers' personal information be protected?
Meng Zedong, a lawyer at Beijing Yingke Law Firm, said that the Mainland's Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Law clearly stipulates that business operators collecting and using consumers' personal information shall follow the principles of legality, legitimacy and necessity, clearly indicate the purpose, method and scope of collecting and using information, and obtain the consent of consumers. In real life, consumers often are forced to authorize the personal information of merchants while choosing to scan the code to order food, which on the one hand infringes on the consumer's right to fair trade and the right to independent choice, on the other hand, it is also the excessive collection of consumers' personal information, which aggravates the risk of personal information loss and personal privacy leakage.
In addition, at present, most applications have the function of collecting users' personal information, and in response to the requirements of relevant laws and regulations such as the Cybersecurity Law of the mainland, operators need to formulate privacy policies to clearly inform them of the collection method, storage period, sharing, transfer, etc. of personal information. As the operating model and application software of Mini Programs are becoming more and more consistent, the mainland has also put forward higher and higher regulatory requirements for Mini Programs. After the user agrees to the privacy policy, the general information collection mode of the merchant is not in line with the original legislative intention of the mainland's "Personal Information Protection Law" and other laws and regulations, nor is it conducive to its own sustainable development.
Jiang Jie, a professor at the School of Law and Politics of Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, analyzed to Shell Financial Reporter that the newly issued "Guidelines" in Shanghai stipulate that the authorized part of the ordering mini program should be in accordance with the principles of legality, legitimacy and necessity, and when providing scanning code ordering services, it should be limited to the minimum scope of the purpose of processing. That is to say, if there is no mobile phone number can also be paid, then the scanning code to order food requires the authorization of the mobile phone number beyond the minimum scope of achieving the purpose of "ordering", so the consumer must not be "mandatory" to authorize the mobile phone number.
However, Jiang Jie believes that if the purpose of scanning the code to order food is to "enhance the ordering experience of consumers", such as forming an ordering memory, the next time you come, you can see what you have ordered before and expressed praise for what, then a moderate claim is feasible. "As long as the merchant provides a variety of ways to order food, it should not be too harsh."
Jiang Jie analyzed that, first of all, it is obviously difficult for catering business activities to reach the degree of monopoly, and the relationship between practitioners and consumers is equal in most scenarios. Secondly, merchants provide a variety of choices such as traditional menus, scan codes and orders on the issue of ordering, for consumers, as long as these choices do not significantly increase their own dining costs, merchants can actually choose one of them to provide to consumers (but not all of them). Finally, for merchants, the use of scanning code to order food is not only for the sake of saving service personnel and improving the speed of the sales cycle, but also for the sake of obtaining more consumption data, improving service quality and commercial profits.
In response to the problem of "excessive claim" of the ordering mini program reflected by consumers on the market, Jiang Jie believes that it is not so much "excessive claim" as the logical structure of the provider that is not rigorous enough. As a merchant, you should explain the scope and purpose of the use after authorization, and provide consumers with the freedom to choose whether to authorize or not. In addition, for subsequent marketing information pushes, merchants should give clear reminders in advance, give users the option to choose whether to receive sms, phone calls, etc. in the later stage, and clearly indicate the exit path. In other words, merchants and technology providers should do two things, one is to explain clearly, and the other is to give choice. "Consumers are worried about abuse, unauthorized information bombardment, unpredictable privacy leaks. Therefore, the original intention of the policy and regulation is to form constraints and let equal and voluntary commercial activities advance along a safe and credible alternative. ”
Jiang Jie pointed out that big data analysis itself has no pros and cons, the key lies in how to use it. In business activities, user portraits themselves are not a bad thing, accurate service and personalized experience are the dream of human beings for a happy life. "Wherever you go, the food is very sweet (no ginger and garlic that will be allergic), the service is very timely, these are the ideals of human beings for the future society."
Finally, Jiang Jie believes that relying on profit-seeking businesses or users with limited professional knowledge, or even relying on institutional norms to solve the relationship between data use and data security, is not feasible in an era when data is already a core asset. Therefore, including the words and lines of the Guidelines, merchants can request authorized mobile phone numbers, even addresses, WeChat, but they must be simply and clearly stated, and consumers must be given sufficient choice. At the same time, the direction of technological development, the foreseeable future, is bound to be that these data will be used, will be open and transparent, but the identity of consumers will exist in an anonymous way that is extremely difficult to break.
Beijing News shell financial reporter Li Menghan Editor Yue Caizhou Proofreader Guo Li