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?
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Beijing News reporter Li Menghan Edited Yue Caizhou
"Welcome, please scan the code to order food when you enter the door." In a large chain beef noodle restaurant brand store in Beijing, the reporter was told to scan the code to order food as soon as he 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.
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The "chaos" of scanning codes to order food still exists
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.
▲The content of the privacy policy of the above beef noodle shop.
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.
▲Summary table of the survey of the ordering situation of 23 catering shops.
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.
▲Manner coffee mini program checkout interface authorization 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.