What does the Heytea facial recognition case mean for the China coffee market?
Heytea trended on Weibo on March 16 after CCTV's 315 Gala named it among more than 20 brands using WanDianZhang facial recognition cameras to collect consumer information without consent. Heytea responded that the cameras are only for security and that it would never illegally collect facial data. WanDianZhang says its platform holds over 100 million facial records.
The exposure also named Kohler, BMW, and Jiangsu Grand Theatre. WanDianZhang said it is drafting a notice on its business scope and rectification measures. For the china coffee market, where chains compete hard for customer data, the case raises pressure on international coffee brands and domestic tea and coffee operators to justify in-store camera use and privacy practices.
On March 16, Heytea trended on Weibo after being caught using WanDianZhang facial recognition cameras. Previously, the CCTV 315 Gala exposed over 20 well-known brands, including Heytea, Kohler, and BMW, for illegally collecting facial information via WanDianZhang cameras without consumers' knowledge. Heytea responded that the cameras are only for security and would never illegally collect facial data. WanDianZhang stated that its platform has over 100 million facial data records and is drafting a notice to explain its business scope and rectification measures. This incident has once again sparked public concerns over the misuse of facial recognition technology and personal privacy security.
On the morning of March 16, Heytea quickly climbed the Weibo trending list with the topic "using WanDianZhang cameras."
March 15 is the annual 315 International Consumer Rights Day. On that evening's 315 Gala, CCTV exposed several well-known brands for using facial recognition cameras from Suzhou WanDianZhang Network Technology Co., Ltd. to illegally obtain consumers' personal information.
Among them, the new tea beverage chain brand "Heytea" was also on the exposed list.
Afterward, Heytea responded to the "WanDianZhang" camera incident, saying:
"WanDianZhang is indeed a supplier of Heytea, but all cameras installed in Heytea stores are only used for security image collection and would never illegally collect consumers' facial data."
Regarding this matter, netizens said: "This kind of behavior is a blatant violation of others' privacy and must be dismantled, otherwise who would dare go to such consumption places?" "Too terrifying." "In this era, there's no privacy even when buying a cup of milk tea."
In addition, according to CCTV's report, it is not only Heytea; such cameras with facial recognition are astonishingly numerous on the market. Enterprises that illegally collect facial information by installing facial recognition cameras also include more than 20 well-known brands or institutions, such as Kohler, BMW, and Jiangsu Grand Theatre, whose facial recognition information was secretly obtained without consumers' knowledge.
The video introduction stated that many enterprise storefronts have installed such cameras with facial recognition functions. As soon as consumers enter the store, without their knowledge, the camera captures their portrait and automatically generates a number. After that, which store under the brand the consumer enters and how many times they visit will all be known by the brand, and merchants do not provide any prompt or notification to consumers about the above behavior.
Well-known sanitary ware brand "Kohler" was also named at the 315 Gala for installing cameras with facial recognition functions in over a thousand stores nationwide and being exposed for collecting customers' facial information without permission. Subsequently, Kohler dismantled the camera equipment overnight and apologized to consumers regarding the issue of facial information collection by Kohler store camera equipment.
From WanDianZhang's official website information, it can also be found that in addition to Kohler, which was named at the 315 Gala, brands such as JOMOO, TATA Wooden Doors, Dongyi Risheng, and IKEA are all major customers of WanDianZhang. Its official website shows that core partners include China Resources and Hisense, with customer fields spanning pharmaceuticals, footwear and apparel, catering, fast-moving consumer goods, home furnishings, digital products, and more.
Data shows that WanDianZhang was established in April 2016. It is a remote store supervision service platform dedicated to providing merchants with services such as remote video store inspections, customer flow statistics, and hotspot analysis. Since its establishment, it has completed two rounds of financing.
On June 22, 2017, WanDianZhang completed a 15 million yuan Series A investment from GSR Ventures; in May 2020, WanDianZhang announced the completion of an 80 million yuan Series B financing, led by DT Capital Partners, with Yuanhai Minghua and SND Ventures following, and obtained a cumulative 50 million yuan credit line from multiple banks.
According to CCTV's report, the cameras with "facial recognition" functions launched by WanDianZhang, after being installed in multiple stores such as Kohler, capture facial data without user permission and can also analyze users' gender, age, mood, and consumption habits.
In response, WanDianZhang Network Technology Co., Ltd. stated that its platform currently has over 100 million facial data records. WanDianZhang co-founder Zhu Youwen responded that the company is drafting a notice to inform the public of its business scope and rectification measures. WanDianZhang founder Zhou Shengqiang responded that the company only helps customers conduct analysis to improve operations, and the relevant data will not be leaked or retained.
In fact, surveillance cameras are already ubiquitous in our daily lives. Most cameras are intended to ensure public safety, but if they are cameras with facial recognition, according to the "Personal Information Security Specification" issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation, authorization and consent from the personal information subject must be obtained when collecting facial information.
In today's information age, facial recognition has become a widely used application scenario. Access control and attendance, ticket verification when riding transport, and facial payment all use facial recognition. On the one hand, such technology brings great convenience to people's lives, but on the other hand, the risk of facial recognition technology being abused is also increasing.
As the video says, facial information is a unique biometric feature of a person and has now become many people's payment password, account password, and so on. Since users cannot change their facial information, once it is leaked, it will seriously threaten users' property security and privacy security. It is understandable for enterprises to reasonably pursue commercial interests, but at the same time, the boundaries of the law should be clearly defined, and use should remain within a "reasonable" scope.
*Image source: Internet
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
