PowerKee’s Bastion of Privacy #31 — China suspends ride-hailing behemoth Didi over failure to meet data protection requirements
The Cyberspace Administration of China has ordered popular ride-hailing company Didi Global Inc. to suspend operations within the country. According to reports, the reason for the suspension is due to the illegal collection of users’ data by the company.
Following the suspension, smartphone app stores in China have also been ordered to stop offering the Didi app. These rules will persist until the Chinese tech company makes changes that comply with the Chinese data protection rules.
In the latest Bastion of Privacy, we highlight the details of the Didi suspension and what it means for both tech companies and their users. We also analyze how emerging tech solutions are offering a superior way for netizens to secure and anonymize their data.
Development:
The PowerKee Team finished the implementation of all design related changes on the native PowerKee wallet. The Core-Team, our newly onboarded QT Developer and five selected early investors are testing the wallet now to finally release it to the public this month.
The Masternode setup is still under development, our team involved a third party to speed up the process to target a full release of the mainnet and wallet to the public this month.
Didi IPO quickly followed by suspension
Headquartered in Beijing,Didi Global has grown into a mobility tech behemoth with a market valuation of over $57 billion. The company was launched in 2012 by former Alibaba employee Cheng Wei.
The company dominates the ride-hailing industry in China. It has also experimented with several other business lines and markets. Such ancillary ventures include food delivery and autonomous driving. Didi recently started trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) after raising $4.4 billion via an initial public offering (IPO).
In the aftermath of the suspension, Didi stopped registering new users. The company announced its registration hiatus via a public announcement and also clarified that it intends to update its processes to comply with the Chinese data privacy rules.
Chinese regulators update data privacy policy
Chinese data protection rules were reviewed earlier this year with special attention directed to tech companies. Ahead of the 2020 review, a crackdown on the Chinese tech sector began which focused primarily on antitrust and privacy concerns. At the time, two of the largest tech and e-commerce platforms in China, Alibaba and Tencent, were put under the spotlight. Controversy surrounded the investigation into Alibaba which revolved around antitrust issues. This forced Jack Ma, the head of Alibaba, to keep a low profile. Suspicions were even raised that Ma may be at risk of kidnapping.
The updated version of China’s data protection laws is believed to be an attempt by the major nation state to keep pace with the global trend of more stringent data protection rules. This global trend accelerated after Europe introduced its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation. As expected, the Chinese regulatory review has had a ripple effect across industries, impacting huge tech companies like Alibaba and Didi while also forcing them to quickly adapt to new guidelines which can be an extremely costly process.
PowerKee as a preventative measure
Regulators are always playing a game of catch up when it comes to protecting the users of major tech platforms like Didi. Such tech companies will always seek to employ the most efficient operations and reduce costs which suggests that data privacy will not always be among their top priorities.
However, regulation is not the only way that netizens can protect their data and secure privacy. Blockchain technology provides an attractive way for users to protect and anonymize their data and online activity. When it comes to financial transactions, the PowerKee network is carefully designed to allow users to cheaply transact while maintaining privacy. The network’s native KEE token can be transacted across a distributed network which allows users to anonymize their transactions.
Regulators scrambling to update data privacy rules is analogous to a patient visiting a doctor after an illness has arrived. The doctor will seek to address the illness with secondary measures. However, someone who exercises daily with a balanced diet is employing preventative measures and lowers the likelihood that a doctor visit will ever arise. Similarly, those netizens that employ cutting-edge privacy technology like PowerKee are employing preventative measures to ensure that their data and identity is never exposed.
About PowerKee
PowerKee is a cryptocurrency network that makes privacy easy. Users can transact cheaply and instantly while maintaining anonymity. The PowerKee protocol uses a mixture of zero-knowledge proofs and coin mixing to provide strong privacy assurances to its users.
