Personal privacy security has once again received attention in China. On April 23, a Chinese netizen posted that Skyworth’s smart TV had hidden an application called “Gozen Data Service” in the backend, which would automatically collect and upload information from all connected smart devices in the user’s home, even the neighbor’s Wi-Fi information. The news quickly aroused attention and heated discussions in China.
On April 27, Skyworth TV and Gozen Data (also known as Gouzheng Data) successively issued statements in response to the collection of user data by Skyworth TV’s “Gozen Data Service” APK reported by the netizen.
Skyworth TV stated that it had completely banned all Skyworth TV’s “Gozen service” for the first time, and issued a letter to terminate the cooperation relationship with Gozen Data, ordering it to delete illegally obtained Skyworth user-related data.
Gozen Data responded that the relevant information of user data collected by it is used for viewing research-related services, and users of this APK can disable it by themselves. “Because the user privacy policy prompts of our company are not clear enough, some users are worried about the privacy and safety of our company. I sincerely apologize to the majority of users.”
According to an insider the Internet of Things industry in China, large companies do need to collect user data. “It is generally done by operating companies, and normal technology companies do not do this.” But he also emphasized, “In fact, it is no different from large companies doing it themselves, but letting operating companies do this can hide themselves.”
According to the official website of Gozen Data, the number of smart TV terminals covered by it exceeds 140 million, while the number of smart TVs in China in 2020 was approximately 250 million. In other words, the data application of Gozen data covers more than half of China’s smart TVs.
With the coverage of more than 149 million households, Gozen Data can get a lot of Chinese household big data information, and develop various marketing tool platform products based on this, such as connected TV (CTV) viewing system, UniPlan+ cross-screen budget allocation system, Gozen CHMP China Family Data Marketing Management Platform, etc.
As early as 2014, Gozen Data and Skyworth Coocaa formally established a strategic partnership. In April 2019, Gozen Data had publicized and reached long-term strategic partnerships with Skyworth, Coocaa, TCL, Changhong, Konka, Fengxing, Micro Whale/TV Cat, Sanyo, Toshiba, Philips and other vendors, embedding the SDK to obtain first-hand smart TV data collection.
As of the first half of 2020, Gozen Data has been embedded into more than 138 million smart TV terminals, with 30 million OTT BOXes, effectively covering 149 million households, 457 million people in China, and the number of connected other smart devices has exceeded 500 million, covering 2000+ TV channels and 19000+APK (including video, game, life, etc.), the number of OTT on-demand programs monitored exceeds 1.8 million.
As a sub-brand of Skyworth, Coocaa Networks transformed from an Internet TV terminal provider to an operating service technology platform, and focused on the OTT ecology, with the main revenue also coming from OTT marketing. In July 2020, Zhao Lei, Dean of Coocaa Network’s Large Screen Index Research Institute, revealed in an interview that based on Skyworth’s Internet of Things capabilities, mobile phones, TVs and other devices in the home will be recognized after they are connected to the same WiFi, establishing a homologous relationship in the home LAN, “We will open up data based on the basic framework of big data security, so as to collect and manage data in a safer, scientific, and valuable way.”
According to the provisions of China’s Civil Code, the personal information of natural persons is protected by law. No organization or individual may infringe on the personal information of others by spying, harassing, divulging, disclosing, etc. Attorney Fu Jian from Henan Yulong Law Firm believes that personal information includes not only names and ID numbers, but also information that identifies specific natural persons. “As a product manufacturer and third-party service provider, obtaining user data information without the user’s consent has obviously infringed upon citizens. The privacy of personal information. As a victim, you have the right to request the information processor to delete it in time, and you can ask the other party to apologize and stop the infringement.”
Source: Jiemian News, etc.