On December 14, Xiaopeng Automobile was fined 100,000 yuan for collecting 430,000 consumer face photos from offline 4S stores without authorization, and rushed to Weibo hot search! In this regard, the reaction of netizens was actually - only fined 100,000?! In the face of netizens' doubts and dissatisfaction, Aoyi News learned from Xiaopeng Automobile for the first time that Xiaopeng Automobile expressed its deep apologies to users and made a deep reflection.
According to the Tianyancha APP, on December 3, Shanghai Xiaopeng Automobile Sales service Co., Ltd. was fined 100,000 yuan by the Shanghai Xuhui District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau.
The screenshot is from Tianyancha
The reporter learned from the decision letter number "Shanghai Municipal Supervision and Xu Department [2021] no. 042021000759" that Shanghai Xiaopeng Automobile Sales Service Co., Ltd. spent 170,000 yuan in 2019 to purchase 22 camera equipment with face recognition functions, installed in its 7 stores, in order to carry out customer flow statistics and passenger flow analysis of stores, including the number of people entering the store, the proportion of men and women, age analysis, etc. From January to June 2021, a total of 431623 face photos were collected and uploaded. This act did not obtain the consent of the consumer, nor did it explicitly or inform the consumer of the purpose of collection and use, which violated the Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Law. As of the time of the case, the parties have dismantled the face recognition camera equipment in the above-mentioned stores, the uploaded face photos have been deleted, and the parties have no illegal gains.
In this regard, many netizens commented that 430,000 face photos were fined 100,000 yuan, and the average cost of a photo was only more than 2 cents, the cost of breaking the law was too low, and the punishment was not enough to deter.
The screenshot is derived from the comments of Weibo netizens
In the face of the dissatisfaction of netizens, Xiaopeng Automobile told Aoyi News that the matter of #Xiaopeng Automobile collecting 430,000 face photos in 6 months caused users to worry and apologized for this.
Xiaopeng Automobile explained that in this incident, the stores in the Shanghai area hoped to improve the reception process and better serve the customers who arrived in the store through the collection and analysis of data such as the customer flow of the store, but due to their unfamiliarity with the relevant legal terms, they mistakenly purchased and used the products of third-party suppliers (Yuluoke) who violated the relevant legal provisions. Xiaopeng Automobile said that it fully obeyed the administrative punishment and made a deep reflection on the matter. At present, all face data has been deleted, and there is no case of leakage or illegal use of personal information.
Xiaopeng Motors also told Aoyi News that the incident only appeared in some stores in Shanghai, and there was no similar problem in other cities.
Xiaopeng Motors is not the first company in China to be penalized for illegally collecting customer face information. This year's CCTV 3.15 evening party reported that the reporter investigated more than 20 merchants equipped with face recognition systems such as Kohler Sanitary Ware and BMW 4S stores in many places across the country, and found that "face recognition information was secretly obtained everywhere they went." As long as the consumer enters one of the stores, without knowing it, it will be grabbed by the camera and automatically generate a number, and the customer will know which store to go to and how many times it has been. After the matter was exposed, industry insiders called for strengthening the supervision of face recognition.
Face information is highly sensitive personal information, and once it is leaked, it will cause great harm to the personal and property safety of individuals.
In July this year, the Supreme People's Court issued the Provisions on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Civil Cases Related to The Use of Face Recognition Technology to Handle Personal Information, article 1 of which clearly states that the handling of "face information" and "face information generated based on face recognition technology" are the objects of regulation. Article 2 of the Provisions clearly points out that the use of face recognition technology for face verification, identification or analysis in business places such as hotels, shopping malls, banks, stations, airports, stadiums, entertainment venues, and other business premises and public places in violation of laws and administrative regulations is an act of infringing on the personality rights and interests of natural persons.
Therefore, merchants should not only illegally use the collected face recognition data and stored face recognition data for verification and identification, but also should not illegally use face recognition data to analyze personal age, health, emotions, psychology and other information with personal characteristics.
Aoyi news reporter Lu Ruoqing