When Was Costa Coffee Founded and Why the Chain Was Summoned

The Shanghai Cyberspace Administration summoned six coffee companies again after a re-inspection found they still collect consumer information in violation of the Personal Information Protection Law. Luckin, Mstand, COSTA, Pacific Coffee, Nowwa and Yichi Garden were named. A reporter's test found that refusing precise location permissions can block some mini-programs from processing orders.

The talks follow a May session with 24 chain brands including Starbucks and Luckin, part of the 2024 enforcement action. COSTA, for context, belongs to the group of large chains covered by these rules, and regulators said they will keep running look-back inspections, file cases and publicly expose companies that repeatedly refuse to correct course. Consumers are advised to watch their own privacy settings.

Recently, the Shanghai Cyberspace Administration found during a re-inspection that six coffee companies, including Luckin, Mstand, COSTA, Pacific Coffee, Nowwa, and Yichi Garden, still have not effectively implemented the requirements of the Personal Information Protection Law and have been collecting consumer information in violation of regulations, and were therefore summoned for talks again. This is another centralized action following the legal education training in May this year for 24 brands including Starbucks and Luckin. A reporter's test found that if users refuse to grant permissions such as precise location, some brands' mini-programs cannot process orders normally. Regulators said they will continue carrying out "look back" inspections and will file cases for punishment and publicly expose companies that repeatedly refuse to correct their ways. While enjoying the convenience of coffee, consumers also need to pay attention to their own privacy security.

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Yesterday, several media outlets including CNR reported that, according to a review and inspection by the Shanghai Cyberspace Administration, six companies including Luckin, Mstand, COSTA, Pacific Coffee, Nowwa, and Yichi Garden still had problems with illegally collecting consumers' personal information, reflecting that some companies still have not truly and effectively implemented the relevant requirements of the Personal Information Protection Law.

In today's big data era, various apps and mini-programs obtain various permissions on mobile phones and thereby collect users' personal information such as geographic location. To most netizens, this is already a common sight. But for people who value privacy, they inevitably worry that brands may leak users' personal information after collecting it.

As early as March this year, some media pointed out that Luckin's mini-program over-collected user information, causing concern among some netizens. After that, the Shanghai Cyberspace Administration and the Shanghai Municipal Administration for Market Regulation launched the "Sword Drawing over the Pujiang River · 2024" special action. On May 10, they summoned 24 chain coffee brands including Starbucks and Luckin for talks, carried out legal education training and compliance guidance, sorted out common illegal and irregular issues in coffee consumption scenarios, and urged companies to conduct self-examination and rectification.

Nearly three months later, during a re-inspection, the Cyberspace Administration found that six companies including Luckin still had not truly and effectively implemented the relevant requirements of the Personal Information Protection Law, and summoned their company heads for talks again.

Kankan News reporters also recently scanned codes at coffee shops such as Luckin and Yichi Garden and found that if, for privacy reasons, they refused to provide precise location permission and other personal information, they could not place orders normally through the official mini-program and could only go to the counter and ask staff to purchase on their behalf.

It is understood that the six companies summoned for talks, including Luckin, had illegal and irregular problems to varying degrees, including missing, untrue, or incomplete privacy policies, forced or frequent inducement to collect precise location information, forced or induced membership sign-ups, and failure to provide a way to turn off targeted push notifications.

The Cyberspace Administration pointed out that the privacy policies of ordering platforms are often lengthy and not clear at a glance, and there are even cases where the scope of information collection is inconsistent with the policy, while most consumers can only agree to have their information collected by the platform in order to place orders normally.

This kind of illegal and irregular behavior may lead to the leakage of consumers' personal information, especially contact details, causing people to receive many sales calls from AI mass-calling systems and the like. Therefore, staff of the Cyberspace Administration said that in addition to making consumers brand members, companies should also provide a convenient payment method, such as providing only a simple payment code to complete the entire consumption process.

In addition, the supervisory department said that it will continue to carry out on-site "look back" inspections for personal information protection, file cases for punishment and publicly expose companies that repeatedly refuse to correct their ways and have serious problems. Citizens with relevant evidence and clues can also provide them to relevant departments through official channels.

Image source: Internet

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.