Tencent Holdings, China’s largest Internet company and the operator of WeChat in China, is looking for lawyers, technology experts, media professionals and ordinary people to be part of its new privacy watchdog.
According to the company, this new “Privacy External Oversight Committee” will be asked to provide input on the company’s user data protection.
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/F1 A39E_wgPbEJHDeqRDZHg
With this recruitment, Tencent becomes the first tech company in China to seek to comply with China’s Personal Information Protection Law, which will take effect on November 1.
Tencent, a leading social media and gaming company, has asked to apply for one of the 15 slots on the committee, and in order to be eligible, applicants must meet the following requirements
- Be at least 18 years of age
- Honest, trustworthy, upright and fair
- Public interest first and keen on privacy protection
- Willingness to learn about PPI and the Internet
- Understanding of privacy laws and regulations
Tencent’s announcement comes two weeks before China begins enforcing its new Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL), and one of the regulations in the law is that companies must set up independent committees of outside experts to monitor them.
This rule applies to companies with a “large number of users”.
This law doesn’t say exactly what a “large number of users” is, or what these oversight bodies are supposed to do.
China’s leading Internet companies like Alibaba and ByteDance have announced how they will improve data protection on their platforms, but have yet to announce plans for a supervisory body.
Early in the summer of 2021, China sanctioned Didi, a ride-sharing service, over concerns that it might be sharing sensitive personal information with foreign companies
The People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, published an article expressing concern that financial apps such as Fudosan Securities and Tiger Securities are not taking sufficient care in handling user data and may provide information to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission if the companies are asked to do so. There was one that said.
Many questions have been raised as to how much of a role such committees actually play, as they do not have the power to veto decisions made by management.
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