It's Now Official: WeChat Really Is Watching You

This post comes courtesy of our content partners at TechNode.

To some extent, WeChat users were already aware of the possibility of the Chinese government reading their private information and messages, but it was still striking when this fact officially hit us last Friday with the Tencent-owned messaging app detailing all the user information it collects as well as its readiness to share this data with the government.

READ: China Issues New Rules for Group Chats on WeChat, QQ, and Others

WeChat’s latest update greeted users with new terms of use and a new privacy policy, to which users must agree if they want to use the app. WeChat acknowledges that it collects a wide range of personal information such as names, phone numbers, email addresses, credit card info, and ID info, as well as the data users make available to the platform like location, chat logs, and more. WeChat will probably know you better than you even know yourself, given that it stores every detail from your bank account info and your closest connections to where you have recently traveled.

The company also demonstrated their willingness to share this with the government to comply with “applicable laws or regulations.” According to the new policy, WeChat can disclose users’ personal information:

• In order to comply with applicable laws or regulations;
• In order to comply with a court order, subpoena or other legal processes;
• In response to a request by a government authority, law enforcement agency or similar body (whether situated in your jurisdiction or elsewhere);
• When (they) believe it is reasonably necessary to comply with applicable laws or regulations;

The new privacy policy has evoked a series of outcries from Chinese users who rushed to WeChat on various app stores with furious comments.

“It’s already hardly bearable to collect our personal information. Now WeChat is going too far, even asking for a smartphone's contact list before logging into the app. Who do you think you are to ask everything about your users, the state secrecy administration?” one user commented under the pseudonym of “M梅梅”.

Photo courtesy of TechNode