Is tea famous? Xicha Wandian palm face recognition monitoring official response did not illegally collect information

On the morning of March 16, Xi Tea quickly entered the hot search list of Weibo for the topic of "using Wandian palm camera".

On March 15, the annual 315 International Consumer Rights Day, CCTV exposed several well-known brands using face recognition cameras owned by Suzhou Wandian Network Technology Co., Ltd. to illegally obtain consumers' personal information.

Among them, including the new tea chain brand "Xi Cha".

Afterwards, Xi Cha responded to the incident by using the "Wandian palm" camera:

"Wandian Zhi is indeed a supplier of Xi Cha, but all the cameras installed in Xi Cha stores are only used for security image collection and will never illegally collect consumer face data."

In response to this matter, netizens said: "this kind of behavior is a blatant invasion of other people's privacy and must be dismantled, otherwise who dares to go to such a place of consumption?" , "it's horrible", "in this day and age, there is no privacy even to buy a cup of milk tea."

In addition, according to a CCTV report, it is not just Xicha, but there are a staggering number of face-recognition cameras on the market. Companies that illegally collect face information through the installation of face recognition cameras also include more than 20 well-known brands or institutions, including Kohler Sanitary Ware, BMW and Jiangsu Grand Theater, whose face recognition information is secretly obtained without consumers' knowledge.

According to the video introduction, many enterprise stores have installed this kind of camera with face recognition function. As long as consumers enter the store, they will be captured by the camera without knowing it and automatically generate a number. since then, consumers who step into any store under the brand and go there several times will be mastered by the brand, and the above-mentioned behavior of the merchants has not prompted and informed the consumers.

Kohler Sanitary Ware, a well-known bathroom brand, was also named at the 315 party after it was revealed that it had installed face recognition cameras in thousands of stores across the country. Kohler bathroom removed the camera equipment overnight and apologized to consumers for the problem of Kohler store camera equipment collecting face information.

And from Wandian official website information can also be found, in addition to the Kohler bathroom named at the 315th party, Jiumu, TATA wooden door, Dongyi Risheng, Ikea and other brands are Wandian's main customers, its official website shows that the core partners include China Resources, Hisense and other enterprises, customer areas include medicine, shoes and clothing, catering, fast consumer, home, digital and so on.

Data show that Wandian Zhong was established in April 2016, is a store remote supervision service platform, committed to providing merchants with remote video inspection, passenger flow statistics, hot spot analysis and other services, since its establishment, has completed a total of two rounds of financing.

On June 22, 2017, Wandian completed GSR Ventures's 15 million yuan A round of investment; in May 2020, Wandian announced the completion of 80 million yuan B round financing, led by Dutong Capital, followed by Yuanhai Minghua and Su Gaoxin, and received a total of 50 million yuan of credit from a number of banks.

According to CCTV, the camera with "face recognition" function launched by Wandianzhang grabs face data without user permission after being installed in Kohler bathroom and other stores. At the same time, users' gender, age, mood and consumption habits can be analyzed.

In response, Wandian Zhong Network Technology Co., Ltd. said that its platform currently has hundreds of millions of face data. Zhu Youwen, co-founder of Wandian Zhong, responded that the company is drafting a notice that will inform the public of the scope of its business and corrective measures. Zhou Shengqiang, founder of Wandian, responded that the company only helps customers do analysis to improve their business, and the relevant data will not be disclosed and retained.

In fact, surveillance cameras are already ubiquitous in our daily life, and most cameras are for the purpose of ensuring public safety, but if they are cameras with face recognition, according to the personal Information Security Code issued by the State Administration of Market Supervision, the collection of face information should be authorized by the subject of personal information.

In today's information age, the application scene of face recognition has been widely used, such as access control, bus ticket checking, face scanning payment and so on. on the one hand, this technology has brought great convenience to everyone's life, but on the other hand, the risk of abuse of face recognition technology is also increasing.

As mentioned in the video, face information is a unique biological feature of people, and it has become the payment password and account password of many people, because users cannot change their face information, once leaked, it will seriously threaten the property security and privacy security of users, and it is understandable for enterprises to pursue commercial interests reasonably, but at the same time, they should also clarify the boundaries of the law and use them within a "reasonable" scope.

* Image source: Internet