The Middle Kingdom seeks to further extend its control over tech companies and their customers. Last measure to date: developers of mobile applications will have to show their credentials, which will not help either the giants of the sector or the smallest developers.
One always wonders if the Chinese Communist Party can go even further in the surveillance of its citizens. But, regardless of the context, the answer always seems to be ” Yes “, to believe that some members of the Government are really fans of the work of George Orwell. Even a little too much.
Have a foothold in China, otherwise nothing
Last month, the Chinese government announced new regulations regarding mobile apps. These will have to comply with new criteria and obligations, including the disclosure of more precise information on their activities. If officially, the objective is to fight against online fraud, it is obvious that this also means increased control over the sector.
According to You Yunting, a Shanghai-based lawyer, the government’s goal is to have more ability to approve or disapprove apps that may be circulating within its territory. In short, it is a question of systematically validating the developers who comply with the needs of the moment (and the ideology) of the Chinese Communist Party. An approach recently observed with the artificial intelligence sector.
To do this, the authorities will require developers to own a company based in China, or to work with a local publisher, to name just one example. This should make it easier to capture user data, in a well-established legal context.
Many applications at risk
The impact on developers, and especially the smallest of them, is likely to be quite significant. But it is above all foreign companies that will have more difficulty penetrating the Chinese market, Meta and X.com (ex-Twitter) in the lead. These are, in fact, still present in local application stores, their only purpose being to be used outside Chinese borders (or by a VPN). The question now is whether and how they will try to comply with the new regulations in order to be downloadable. And above all, to what extent will user data be made available to the government?
In any case, companies will have until March 31, 2024 to make the transition, after which the sanctions should quickly fall. However, app store makers like Tencent, Huawei, Xiaomi (which has a new foldable smartphone) and OPPO have no plans to wait until that date, and have said they will exclude news from their platforms. applications that lack the necessary information. The only major player concerned to remain silent on the subject, Apple has not yet started controlling the deposit of applications on its App Store. The year 2024 has not yet begun that it is already shaping up to be… interesting.
Source : Reuters
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