Taiwan warns: These Chinese apps are sending users' data to China
NSB said that the results indicate the existence of security issues, including excessive data collection and privacy infringement. It further warned, "The public is advised to exercise caution when choosing mobile apps." NSB also pointed out that companies operating in China are obligated to turn over user data under domestic laws for national security, public security, and intelligence purposes. So, using these apps can breach the privacy of users.
How NSB found out Chinese apps are sending data to China
The agency said that it evaluated Chinese apps against 15 indicators spanning five broad categories: Personal data collection, excessive permission usage, data transmission and sharing, system information extraction, and biometric data access.
According to the analysis, RedNote violated all 15 indicators, followed by Weibo and TikTok that were found to breach 13 indicators. WeChat and Baidu Cloud violated 10 and 9 of the 15 indicators, respectively.
These issues encompassed extensive collection of personal data, including facial recognition information, screenshots, clipboard contents, contact lists, and location information. All the apps have also been flagged for harvesting the list of installed apps and device parameters.
"With regard to data transmission and sharing, the said five apps were found to send packets back to servers located in China," the NSB said. "This type of transmission has raised serious concerns over the potential misuse of personal data by third-parties."
Ban on Chinese apps across the world
Taiwan's warning comes after several nations across the world have banned or restricted certain Chinese apps. In June 2020, India announced ban almost 100 Chinese-made apps, citing national security concerns. In November 2024, Canada ordered TikTok to dissolve its operations in the country.
Last week, one of Germany's data protection authorities asked Apple and Google to remove Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot DeepSeek from their respective app stores. The Germany's data protection authourity accused DeepSeek of unlawful user data transfers to China. Several other countries too have announced similar restrictions on DeepSeek.
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