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Chinese EV Maker Fined for Illegal Collection of 430,000 Facial Images

Wed, 19 Jan 2022
Categories: China Legal Trends

Recently, XPeng Motors’s sale unit in Shanghai was fined CNY 100,000 by the market regulator in Xuhui District, Shanghai, for illegally collecting customers’ facial information.

XPeng is one of China’s mainstream local electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers, known for its self-driving technology which is neck and neck with Tesla.

According to the administrate sanction document by the market regulator in Xuhui District, Shanghai, XPeng purchased 22 sets of cameras equipped with facial recognition and installed them in its stores as a way to record the number of people entering the stores and analyze the ratio of men to women, age, etc. From January to June this year, a total of 431,623 facial photos had been collected and uploaded.

XPeng did not inform consumers of the data collection and usage, nor did it ask for their permission, which had violated the law on the protection of the rights and interests of consumers.

 

 

Cover Photo by YoHa Lee on Unsplash

Contributors: CJO Staff Contributors Team

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