Taiwan’s National Security Bureau (NSB) has warned that China-developed applications such as Rednote (Aka Xiaohongshu), Weibo, Tiktok, WeChat, and Baidu clouds reduce security risks due to excessive data collection and data transfer to China.
Alert comes after inspection of these apps under the National Police Agency in coordination with the Bureau of Justice Investigation (MJIB) and Criminal Investigation (CIB).
“Results indicate the existence of safety issues, including excessive data collection and privacy violations,” the NSB said. “The public is advised to take precautions when choosing a mobile app.”
The agency stated that it evaluated apps against 15 indicators in five comprehensive categories: individual data collection, excessive permission, 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 which were found to violate 13 indicators. WeChat and Baidu Claude violated 10 and 9 of the 15 indicators respectively.
These issues include a comprehensive collection of personal data, including facial identification information, screenshots, clipboard materials, contact lists and location information. All apps have also been flagged for harvesting list of apps and device parameters.
NSB said, “In relation to data transmission and sharing, the above five apps were found to send back to the servers located in China.” “This type of transmission has increased serious concerns over the possible misuse of personal data by third-party.”
The NSB also stated that companies working in China are bound to turn on user data under domestic laws for national security, public safety and intelligence purposes, and using these apps may violate the privacy of Taiwanese users.
This development comes when countries like India have imposed restrictions against Chinese made apps citing security concerns. In November 2024, Canada ordered Tikokkok to dissolve its operations in the country, although its fate in the US is still limited, as a ban – which was going to be effective in January 2025 – has been extended for the third time.
Last week, one of the German data protection officers urged Apple and Google to remove Chinese Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot deepsek from your respective app store due to illegal user data transfer for China. Similar restrictions have also been imposed by other countries.
“NSB strongly advises the public to be cautious about mobile devices safety and avoid downloading China-made apps that pose a cyber security risk, so that personal data can be protected and corresponding to protect the secrecy and corporate business secrets,” said this.
