WeChat

Waarschuwing: *Privacy niet inbegrepen bij dit product

Apps voor videogesprekken

WeChat

Tencent
Wifi

Beoordelingsdatum: 8 september 2021

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Mozilla onderzocht 8 uur
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Mozilla zegt

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Mensen stemden op: Supergriezelig

WeChat is a hugely popular social media and messaging app owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent. And when we say popular, we mean it’s one of the most downloaded apps in the world, with over a billion active users. It’s also one of the least private messaging apps we've come across. It offers all the features -- text chat, video and voice chat, location sharing, stickers, games, WeChat Pay, and even ways to exercise with your friends. Which is great. Just don't expect anything you do on WeChat to be private.

Wat kan er gebeuren als er iets misgaat?

Ding! Ding! Ding! WeChat earns our *Privacy Not Included warning label for good reason. WeChat isn't just bad at privacy, it's scary. Where to start? The lack of end-to-end encryption? Not a deal breaker, but not great.The leak of hundreds of millions of private chat logs? Definitely bad! The reported recent banning of LGBTQ friendly and feminist accounts? Yikes! The alleged foreign surveillance and censorship. Terrible! Yes, WeChat has a huge billion+ user base. Yes, it’s very popular and feature rich. But none of that outweighs WeChat's bad track record on privacy and security. The bottom line: we feel the only way to protect your privacy when using WeChat, is to never use WeChat. *Privacy is absolutely not included.

  • mobile

Kan het me bespioneren? informatie

Camera

Apparaat: Niet beschikbaar

App: Ja

Microfoon

Apparaat: Niet beschikbaar

App: Ja

Volgt locatie

Apparaat: Niet beschikbaar

App: Ja

Wat is er nodig om u aan te melden?

Optional Facebook sign up is available.

Welke gegevens verzamelt het bedrijf?

Hoe gebruikt het bedrijf deze gegevens?

WeChat may hand over any data (including communication content) to the government, public, regulatory, judicial and law enforcement bodies or authorities when necessary. In addition, WeChat data can be shared with a number of group companies, including Tencent International Service Europe BV (located in the Netherlands), Tencent International Service Pte. Ltd (located in Singapore), WeChat International Pte Ltd (located in Singapore) and Oriental Power Holdings Limited (located in Hong Kong) and WeChat International (Canada) Limited (located in Canada). WeChat also says they may share user data with a number of third parties. All WeChat users should note, Tencent also operates Weixin, a service interoperable with WeChat, targeted at users in mainland China. In the WeChat privacy policy, they state, "When you interact with a Weixin user, or use or receive notifications from any feature operated by Weixin, please be mindful that your information may be collected, retained, shared and/or stored by Weixin in accordance with the Weixin Privacy Protection Guidelines and not this Privacy Policy." So if you as a WeChat user interact with a Weixin user (and you may not know who on the service is a Weixin users versus a WeChat user), your privacy rights will be only protected as far as the less protective Weixin privacy policy applies.

Hoe kunt u uw gegevens beheren?

WeChat says that you can delete your account, or remove certain personal information, by logging into your WeChat account and following the account deletion instructions. The company provides clear retention periods for all data. According to a 2019 paper by MIT researchers, at the time, when a user deleted a voice or text message, rather than removing the data from the local database, WeChat simply removed the key storage for the data. However, because this data remained in the local storage, the data was not actually deleted. WeChat has indicated that currently, when a user deletes a message from a chat, the WeChat app will immediately delete both the message key and the content of that message from the user’s local storage.

Hoe staat het bedrijf bekend als het gaat om het beschermen van gebruikersgegevens?

Slecht

WeChat allegedly censors private conversations automatically in real life, for both Chinese and non-Chinese users. In March 2019, a database of 364 million records of users from China was discovered on the Internet. Each record, drawn from apps like WeChat and QQ, also contained personally identifying Chinese citizen ID numbers, photos, addresses, GPS location data, and info on the type of device being used. The database also sent data back to 17 remote servers in different provinces in China. There is a suspicion that the data gets distributed among police stations. WeChat also reportedly shut down hundreds of LGBTQ+ friendly accounts in July 2021.

Kan dit product offline worden gebruikt?

Niet beschikbaar

Gebruikersvriendelijke privacy-informatie?

Nee

Huge and overly complex privacy policy.

Koppelingen naar privacy-informatie

Voldoet dit product aan onze minimale beveiligingsnormen? informatie

Ja

Versleuteling

Ja

Uses encryption but no end-to-end encryption

Sterk wachtwoord

Ja

Password is needed to set up an account. Password must be 8-16 characters and contain both numbers and letters/special characters.

Beveiligingsupdates

Ja

Since its launch in 2011, over 100 updates.

Beheert kwetsbaarheden

Ja

Tencent operates a security response center.

Privacybeleid

Ja

Gebruikt het product AI? informatie

Ja

WeChat runs a WeChat AI hub, which openly focuses on such applications as Speech and Audio recognition, Natural Language Processing, face recognition, content understanding, etc. A major concern is that this AI enables censorship, blocking links, images, topics or audio.

Is deze AI onbetrouwbaar?

Kan niet bepalen

Wat voor soort beslissingen neemt de AI over u of voor u?

Is het bedrijf transparant over hoe de AI werkt?

Nee

Heeft de gebruiker controle over de AI-functies?

Kan niet bepalen

*Privacy niet inbegrepen

Dieper duiken

  • Red Vs are after China’s queer community
    Protocol Koppeling opent in een nieuw tabblad
  • TikTok, WeChat & Co: How does spyware get into smartphones?
    DW Koppeling opent in een nieuw tabblad
  • Tencent's WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance
    Reuters Koppeling opent in een nieuw tabblad
  • How WeChat censors private conversations, automatically in real time
    Technology Review Koppeling opent in een nieuw tabblad
  • Out in the World: China's WeChat shuts down LGBTQ accounts
    BayAreaReporter Koppeling opent in een nieuw tabblad
  • LGBTQ activists give voice to China's censored WeChat groups
    Nikkei Asia Koppeling opent in een nieuw tabblad
  • Chinese censorship invades the U.S. via WeChat
    Washington Post Koppeling opent in een nieuw tabblad
  • Security in the Face of Censorship
    MIT Koppeling opent in een nieuw tabblad
  • Outrage over shutdown of LGBTQ WeChat accounts in China
    The Guardian Koppeling opent in een nieuw tabblad
  • Hundreds of millions of Chinese chat logs leak online
    Financial Times Koppeling opent in een nieuw tabblad

Opmerkingen

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