Xpeng Motors was fined 100,000 yuan by Shanghai market regulators for using facial recognition cameras to illegally collect 431,623 face photos of customers from January to June 2021 without consent or notification.
Xpeng Motors, a Chinese electric vehicle company, installed 22 sets of facial recognition cameras across 7 stores (5 direct stores and 2 franchise stores) in Shanghai to monitor customer traffic and analyze demographics. From January to June 2021, these cameras collected 431,623 facial images of customers without obtaining consent or informing customers about the data collection and its purpose. The company had signed a Framework Contract in 2019 with a third-party supplier for passenger flow monitoring services. Shanghai's Xuhui District Market Supervision Administration discovered the violation and fined Xpeng Motors 100,000 yuan ($15,717) for violating Consumer Rights Protection Law. The company apologized, stating they were unfamiliar with relevant legal provisions, and confirmed they had proactively removed all collection equipment on March 18 before the regulatory inspection. Xpeng claimed all collected data was deleted without leaks or illegal use, and that they only used non-personal traffic flow data for operational reference. The incident generated significant criticism on Chinese social media, with many calling for stronger regulatory enforcement against companies illegally collecting private information.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
AI systems that memorize and leak sensitive personal data or infer private information about individuals without their consent. Unexpected or unauthorized sharing of data and information can compromise user expectation of privacy, assist identity theft, or cause loss of confidential intellectual property.
AI system
Due to a decision or action made by an AI system
Unintentional
Due to an unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed