Installation terms are not transparent! Temu safety raises concerns in the West

In recent years, Western countries are strictly checking their dependence on Chinese technology. With the rapid development, Temu has also entered their field of vision.

Data shows that as of July 8, Temu ranked first in downloads in the App Store in Belgium, France, Italy, Germany and Portugal, and ranked second in downloads in the UK, the Netherlands, Sweden and Poland . In addition, Temu has been downloaded more than 50 million times in the global Google Play Store.

However, the huge number of downloads has also triggered questions and concerns among Western industry insiders about the installation terms .

Apple has said that Temu violated the company's principled privacy regulations. Apple believes that Temu misled users about how to use user data, and the app's so-called "privacy nutrition label" (a description of the type of data the app can access, how to access it, and its purpose) did not accurately reflect its privacy policy and did not give users the opportunity to choose not to be tracked on the Internet. But Apple also said that these problems have now been resolved.

Other Western experts believe that, like many other applications, Temu automatically collects information such as the user's location and tracks the user's online activities through cookies. The program also combines the user's personal information with information from public sources such as government agencies, social media platforms, data providers, and marketing partners.

Reva Goujon, director of the Rhodium Group, a research firm , said such data collection could lead to it being used for “malicious” purposes without the user's knowledge.

Laurie Mercer, a security engineer at cybersecurity firm HackerOne, said that in his opinion, Temu did not seem to have a form for reporting vulnerabilities and their lack of transparency about security testing would raise alarms; and he could not find any vulnerability disclosure programs or bug bounty programs on Pinduoduo and Temu, which other large e-commerce companies have.

Jeroen Becker, an analyst at cybersecurity firm NVISO , said the app was complex and difficult to investigate, and that there was obfuscation that made the code difficult to analyze, meaning the company had something to hide.

Bart Groothuis, a Dutch Liberal Party politician in the European Parliament and former head of cyber policy at the Dutch Ministry of Defense, believes that the trust issue lies not with specific products but with companies and countries themselves .

However, Temu 's data use has not yet attracted a formal European investigation. Data protection authorities including those in the Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy, Ireland and the regions of Bayern and Hamburg said they had received no complaints as of the end of June.

Apparently, Temu is aware of its situation. In June, the company began hiring legal counsel in Europe to “develop and maintain trust and safety policies” to better suit Western markets.

Temu

Installation Terms

Data Security